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NORTH  CAROLINA  STATE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 


S00645616   S 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  DATE 
INDICATED  BELOW  AND  IS  SUB- 
JECT TO  AN  OVERDUE  FINE  AS 
POSTED  AT  THE  CIRCULATION 
DESK. 


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150M/01 -92— 920179 


BEACH   GRASS 


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BEACH  GRASS 


BY 

CHARLES  WENDELL  TOWNSEND 

Author  of  "  Sand  Dunes  and  Salt  Marshes,"  "A  Labrador  Spring, 
"  In  Audubon's  Labrador,"  etc. 


BOSTON 
MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 

1923 


COPYRIGHT  •  1923  •  BY    MARSHALL    JONES    COMPANY 


All  rights  reserved 
Printed  in  September,  1923 


PRINTED     IN     THE     UNITED     STATES     OF     AMERIC. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

I.    Days  and  Nights  in  the  Dunes    ...  i 

II.    Tracks  in  the  Sand 41 

III.  The  Beach  in  Winter 80 

IV.  Ice  and  Snow  in  the  Sand  Dunes    .    .  95 
V.     Ice  Formations  in  the  Salt  Marshes  102 

VI.    The  Uplands  in  Winter iii 

VII.    A  Winter  Crow  Roost 135 

VIII.    The  Forest 162 

IX.     Swallows  at  Work  and  Play    ....  214 

X.    Hawking 227 

XI.     Courtship  in  Birds 248 

XII.    On  Certain  Humanities 277 

Index 307 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE                                                                                                                FACING  PAGE 

1.  Sand  Dunes  in  Winter Frontispiece 

2.  The  Vendome  Dune  Overwhelmed  by  Sand 

IN  1915 2 

3.  The  Vendome  Dune  in  1918 2 

4.  The  Camp  Grove  in  1913 3 

5.  The  Camp  Grove  in  1921     3 

6.  Cirque  Dune  Changing  to  the  Desert  Form  4 

7.  a  nunatak  in  the  dunes 5 

8.  Desert  Dune  of  the  Camp  Grove  from  the  5 

North      5 

9.  Hudsonia  in  Blossom 8 

10.  Dusty  Miller 8 

11.  The  Dunes   by   Moonlight   {twenty  minute 

exposure) 14 

12.  Beach  Grass 14 

13.  Young  Long-Eared  Owl 28 

14.  Ancient  Willow 28 

15.  Night  Herons'  Nests 32 

16.  Night  Heron's  Nest  with  Eggs 32 

17.  Tracks  of  Deer  Walking  in  Hard  Sand  .  42 

18.  Tracks  of  Same  Deer  Running  in  Soft  Sand  42 

19.  Deer  Tracks  in  Hard  Sand 43 

20.  Deer  Tracks  in  Hard  Sand 43 

21.  Deer  Tracks  in  Soft  Sand 43 

22.  Tracks  OF  Doe  and  Fawn  about  Water-Hole  43 

vii 


VIU  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE                                                                                                                 FACING  PAGE 

23.  Fox  Tracks  and  Ripple-Marks     50 

24.  Fox  Diggings  for  Grubs     50 

25.  Dead  Loon  with  Tracks  of  Crow,  Skunk 

AND  Fox 51 

26.  Caterpillar  Tracks  on  Steep  Side  of  Dune  51 

27.  Muskrat  Tracks     62 

28.  Muskrat  Tracks 62 

29.  Tracks  of  Woodchuck  and   Pheasant  on 

February  6,  192 1 63 

30.  Rabbit  Tracks     66 

31.  Gray  Squirrel  Tracks 66 

32.  Dead  White-Footed  Mouse  and  Tracks    .  67 

33.  Seaside  Goldenrod  and  Skunk  Tracks  .    .  67 

34.  Cat  Tracks 68 

35.  Skunk  Tracks  and  Hole  Dug  for  Grubs  .  68 

36.  Tracks  of  a  Horned  Lark  and  of  a  Lazy 

Crow 74 

37.  Tracks  of  Crow  and  of  Young  Toads  .    .  74 

38.  Tracks  of  Ring-Necked  Plover,  of  Toad, 

AND  OF  Crow  Alighting 75 

39.  Tracks  of  Night  Herons 75 

40.  Tracks  of  Herring  Gull 78 

41.  Grasshopper  and  its  Tracks  and  Tracks  of 

Savannah  Sparrow 78 

42.  Incipient  Ice-Wall  at  the  Beach,  January, 

1922 86 

43.  The  Ice- Wall  at  the  Beach,  January  6,  191 8  86 

44.  Ice- Wall  Undercut 87 

45.  Ice- Wall  Honeycombed  and  Darkened  with 

Sand 87 

46.  Ice- Wall,  February  8,  1920 88 

47.  Ice- Wall,  February  29,  1920 88 


ILLUSTRATIONS  IX 

plate                                                                      facing  page 

48.  'Tuddingstone"  Ice -Wall 89 

49.  "Cobblestone"  Ice  on  the  Beach   ....  89 

50.  Ice- Wall  and  Pinnacled  Rocks 92 

51.  Ice- Wall  Battered  BY  THE  Surf  AT  High  Tide  92 

52.  Frost-Rime  at  the  Beach 93 

53.  Ice  Grotto 93 

54.  Dunes  in  Winter 96 

55.  Dunes  after  Ice- Storm 96 

56.  Snowdrift  in  Dunes 97 

57.  Stratified  Drift  of  Sand  and  Snow   ...  97 

58.  Frozen  Sand  Columns,  "Toadstools"     .   .  98 

59.  Sand  Kettle-Hole 98 

60.  Cracks  in  Sand  over  Snow 99 

61.  Frost  Crack  and  Retreat  of  Dunes  before 

the  Sea 99 

62.  A  Creek  in  Winter  at  Low  Tide    ....  102 

63.  Vendome  Dune  from  the  Frozen  Estuary  102 

64.  The  Marsh  in  Winter 106 

65.  The    Marsh   by   Moonlight    (seven   minute 

exposure) 106 

66.  The  Ice  Ant-Eater 107 

67.  The  Ice  Bear 107 

68.  Birch  Bent  by  Ice-Storm 122 

69.  Edge  of  "Forest"  after  Ice-Storm     ...  122 

70.  Bushes  and  Trees  in  Ice-Storm.    A  Glacial 

Kettle-Hole 128 

71.  Apple -Tree     Gnawed     by     Rabbits     and 

Meadow-Mice 12S 

72.  Tracks  of  Crow  Taking  Flight 156 

73.  Crow  Pellets  Regurgitated 156 

74.  The   "Forest"   in   1906,   Appearing  above 

THE  Grass 162 


X  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  FACING  PAGE 

75.  TiiE  "Forest"  in  192 i  {from  the  same  point)  162 

76.  The  Lean-To  in  the  "Forest,"  April  4,  1915  172 

77.  Ice  Arch  in  Marsh 172 

78.  Outline  Drawings  of  Hawks 234 

79.  The  Eeler  at  Ninety 284 

80.  The  Sand  Schooner 284 

81.  The  Last  of  the  "Edward  S.  Eveleth"    .  288 

82.  The  Sander  . 288 


PREFACE 

IN  "Sand  Dunes  and  Salt  Marshes"  I  made 
note  of  intimate  studies  of  such  regions  in 
my  sojourns  at  Ipswich,  of  the  varied  forms 
and  movements  of  the  sand,  of  the  growth  and 
origin  of  the  salt  marsh  and  of  the  life  in  the 
dunes  and  the  marshes  both  animal  and  vegetable. 
In  the  following  pages  I  have  endeavored  to  set 
forth  additional  studies  in  these  same  regions. 

Chapters  VII  and  XI  appeared  first  in  the 
pages  of  the  Auk,  Chapter  IX  and  part  of  Chap- 
ter X  in  the  Bulletin  of  the  Essex  County  Orni- 
thological Club,  to  both  of  which  publications  I 
am  indebted  for  permission  to  print  here. 

As  in  my  other  books,  the  Index  will  be  found 
to  contain  the  scientific  names  of  the  plants  and 
animals  mentioned.  The  illustrations  are  from 
my  own  photographs. 

I  have  called  the  present  volume  by  the  title  of 


xii  PREFACE 

"Beach  Grass",  partly  because  this  grass  is  so  char- 
acteristic of  the  region  and  partly  because  of  the 
meaning  of  its  scientific  name — A?nmophila 
arenaria — the  sandy  sand-lover. 


BEACH   GRASS 


BEACH    GRASS 

CHAPTER  I 
Days  and  Nights  in  the  Dunes 

''There  is  a  rapture  on  the  lonely  shore^ 
There  is  society^  where  none  intrudes^ 
By  the  deep  Sea,  and  music  in  its  roar.'' 

— Byron 

THE  DUNES  are  constantly  changing 
and  always  present  scenes  of  interest 
and  beauty.  The  surface  ripple-marks 
formed  in  the  bed  of  the  wind  and  athwart  its 
course  like  the  ripple  marks  in  the  sandy  bed  of  a 
stream,  move  with  the  current.  The  grains  of 
sand  hurry  up  the  gradually  sloping  side  to  wind- 
ward, drop  over  the  steeper  leeward  side  and  eddy 
in  the  trough.  These  rippling,  corded  markings 
are  to  be  found  wherever  the  sand  is  bare  of  vege- 
tation, and  record  the  direction  of  the  present  or 
latest  strong  wind.     Like  snowdrifts,   the  sand 


2  BEACH  GRASS 

collects  behind  tufts  of  grass  or  bits  of  driftwood 
and  builds  up  into  dunes.  The  dunes  devoid  of 
binding  grass  or  bushes — the  desert  dunes — move 
in  the  direction  of  the  strongest  winds,  those  of 
the  winter  months  which  blow  from  the  north 
towards  the  south.  Like  magnified  ripple- 
marks,  the  windward  side  is  hard  packed  and 
slopes  upward  at  a  gentle  angle  of  about  nine  de- 
grees, while  the  leeward  side  rests  at  the  steeper 
angle  of  repose  of  the  sand,  an  angle  df  thirty- 
two  degrees.  On  this  side  each  foot  of  the  trav- 
eller sinks  deeply  into  the  soft  sand  and  starts  it 
rolling  downward. 

The  two  most  striking  examples  of  this  desert 
type  of  dune  at  Ipswich,  described  in  my  former 
volume,  still  continue  their  devastating  career. 
The  '"glacier"  dune  has  buried  still  more  of  the 
living  pitch  pine  grove  and  has  uncovered  more 
of  the  dead  one.  In  its  uncovering  process,  the 
bleached  skeleton  of  a  horse  has  ben  exposed  to- 
day, and  its  bones  lie  about  among  the  relics  of 
trees  where  the  animal  laid  itself  down  to  die, 
many  years  before.  The  other  great  desert  dune, 
the  one  near  the  mouth  of  the  Essex  River,  has 


THE  VENDOME  DUNE  OVERWHELMED  BY   SAND  IN    IQl^ 


THE  VENDOME   DUNE   IN    I918 


THE    CAMP   GROVE    IN    I9I3 


THE    CAMP    GROVE    IN     I92 


IN  THE  DUNES  3 

swept  on  with  greater  rapidity,  as  a  larger  area 
is  now  devoid  of  binding  vegetation  and  is  open 
to  all  the  winds  of  heaven.  Little  remains  of  the 
birch  grove,  and  the  camp  therein  will  shortly  be 
overwhelmed.  The  sand  has  doubtless  advanced 
at  times  at  a  faster  rate  than  five  feet  a  month  in 
winter,  a  rate  formerly  determined  by  measure- 
ment and  markings  of  individual  trees. 

Between  these  two,  a  dune  has  overwhelmed  a 
fisherman's  shanty  which  formerly  bore  a  weather- 
beaten  sign, — "The  Vendome."  Higher  and 
higher  crept  the  sand  until  nothing  was  left  ex- 
posed but  the  ridgepole,  and  this  finally  disap- 
peared. By  a  further  shift  and  advance  of  the 
sand,  a  bit  of  the  ruins  is  now  revealed  on  this 
Vendome  dune. 

The  reverse  waves  of  sand,  with  their  steeper 
undercut  surfaces  to  windward,  held  in  place  by 
the  binding  roots  and  buried  stalks  of  the  beach 
grass,  have  continued  to  cut  backwards.  These  I 
formerly  called  amphitheatre  dunes,  as  they  take 
the  shape  of  large  or  small  amphitheatres.  A 
similar  name,  that  of  cirque  dunes,  might  well  be 
adopted,  for,  like  the  glacial  cirques  cut  out  of 


4  BEACH  GRASS 

the  rocks  of  mountains,  their  progress  is  partly 
determined  by  undercutting  and  by  "plucking," 
— not  by  ice,  however,  but  by  the  wind.  Some 
of  these  cirque  dunes  are  changing  to  the  desert 
type  as  larger  areas  of  sand,  free  from  vegetation 
on  their  windward  sides,  give  freer  scope  to  the 
wind. 

Irregular  dunes,  looking  like  snow-covered 
mountain  tops,  pyramidal  dunes  cut  on  all  sides, 
and  peaks  well  protected  by  the  binding  beach 
grass  are  all  to  be  found.  Some  of  the  latter 
stand  up  like  nunataks  above  the  surface  of  a 
glacier,  or  monadnocks  on  a  worn  down  plain. 
Eagle  dune  has  constantly  changed  in  outline, 
disappearing  like  snow  in  the  hot  sunshine  on  the 
windward  northern  side,  to  be  built  up  to 
leeward. 

The  outline  of  the  beach  itself  is  undergoing 
many  changes.  The  building  of  a  stone  and 
cement  breakwater  opposite  Little  Neck  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Ipswich  River  has  caused  many 
changes  in  its  wake.  The  cove  below,  where  one 
of  the  Christmas  wrecks  occurred  in  1909,  has  lost 
an  indention  of  at  least  a  hundred  yards  and  the 


A   NUNATAK   IN   THE   DUNES 


DESERT  DUNE  OF  THE  CAMP  GROVE   FROM  THE   NORTH 


\ 


IN  THE  DUNES  5 

shore  has  become  almost  straight.  Farther  to  the 
south,  the  rebound  from  this  building  out  has 
carried  away  fifty  or  sixty  feet  of  the  end  of  a 
driveway  to  the  shore,  and  exposed  a  cross  section 
of  dunes  in  a  low  cliff.  In  1911,  I  found  the 
distance  from  the  northern  corner  of  the  light- 
house lot  was  a  thousand  and  ninety  feet  from 
high  water  mark.  In  December,  1920,  it  was 
only  six  hundred  and  thirty  feet.  Warning  tres- 
pass signs,  like  King  Canute's  commands,  have 
been  of  no  avail.  They  have  been  washed  away 
by  the  advancing  sea. 

In  winter  this  cliff  of  sand,  solidified  by  frost, 
is  undercut  by  the  waves,  cracks  a  foot  or  two 
from  the  edge  and  long  sections  sink  down.  In 
this  way  the  recession  is  rapid.  The  pathway 
from  the  lighthouse,  after  traversing  the  dunes, 
formerly  passed  through  a  broad  stretch  of  low- 
lying  upper  beach.  Now  that  the  beach  is  cut 
back,  the  path  over  the  dunes  is  shown  in  section 
like  a  U-shaped  hanging  valley. 

Still  farther  to  the  south  the  beach  has  built 
out  on  a  shore  line  of  about  half  a  mile,  and  suc- 
cessive waves  of  dunes  mark  the  old  beach  lines. 


6  BEACH  GRASS 

A  great  plane  of  wind-swept  sand  awaits  the 
growth  of  beach  grass  and  the  building  up  of 
dunes,  but  may  succumb  to  the  waves  before  this 
occurs.  Again  the  swing  of  the  shore  line  beyond 
this  plane  has  cut  into  the  older  dune-covered 
beaches  and  has  revealed  in  section  timbers  of  old 
wrecks,  once  on  the  shore,  and  the  remains  of  a 
fisherman's  dory  long  buried  by  the  sand.  Be- 
yond this  the  beach  line  is  nearly  straight,  for  the 
outlying  Ipswich  bar  comes  to  an  end,  the  swing 
of  the  river  no  longer  exerts  itself,  its  mean- 
ders have  ceased  and  it  has  escaped  to  sea.  It 
is  dangerous  to  interfere  with  the  course  of  a 
river.     The  consequences  are  far  reaching. 

Although  many  bushes  and  trees  are  over- 
whelmed by  the  sand  every  year,  the  total 
amount  of  vegetation  in  the  Ipswich  dunes,  de- 
scribed in  the  former  volume,  appears  to  be  in- 
creasing. In  the  last  ten  years  the  groves  of 
pitch  pines  have  augmented  very  much  in  area, 
extending  towards  the  south  whither  the  pine 
seeds  are  carried  by  the  strong  northerly  winds. 
Many  of  the  cranberry  bogs — natural  ones,  not 
man-made — have  grown  up  to  bushes,  and  here 


IN  THE  DUNES  7 

I  have  added  a  new  bush  and  a  new  tree  to  the 
list — the  buttonbush  and  the  red  oak.  The 
dusty  miller,  a  naturalized  emigrant  to  these 
shores,  has  increased  and  multiplied.  The  Hud- 
sonia  is  as  beautiful  at  all  seasons  as  ever.  The 
two  clumps  of  red  birches  and  of  rhodora  still 
keep  their  station,  but  the  few  square  feet  of 
bearberry  have  disappeared  from  my  ken,  whether 
overwhelmed  by  the  sand,  or  merely  lost,  I  know 
not. 

It  is  devoutly  to  be  hoped  that  no  enthusiast 
will  ever  introduce  foreign  trees  or  shrubs  to  dis- 
turb the  natural  flora  of  these  dunes.  Such  an 
event  would  be  viewed  by  a  naturalist  almost  in 
the  nature  of  a  calamity. 

Growing  near  the  edge  of  the  dunes  at  the 
foot  of  Castle  Hill  is  a  willow  of  great  age,  a 
veteran,  with  split  and  hollow  bole,  unable 
longer  to  hold  up  its  great  branches  which  rest 
on  the  ground.  In  touching  the  ground  it  has 
renewed  its  life  like  Antseus  of  old  or  like  the 
banyan  tree,  and  has  taken  root  and  sent  up 
fresh  and  vigorous  willow  saplings.  It  is  re- 
lated of  the   early  colonists   that   they  brought 


8  BEACH  GRASS 

over  from  England  willow  wands  which  they 
stuck  in  the  ground  to  grow,  and  I  like  to  think 
that  Winthrop  the  younger,  who  owned  all  this 
region,  may  have  planted  this  tree.  There  are 
three  other  willows  of  the  same  great  age  and  de- 
crepitude but  with  the  same  vigor  of  renewed 
youth,  two  side  by  side  higher  up  on  Castle  Hill, 
the  other  on  the  side  of  Sagamore  Hill.  The 
pair  on  Castle  Hill  are  much  broken  with  age. 
The  trunk  of  one  is  fourteen  feet,  seven  inches  in 
circumference,  the  other  seventeen  feet  nine 
inches  in  circumference — almost  six  feet  in  diam- 
eter. 

A  mirage  of  the  distant  coast  and  of  vessels  on 
the  sea  is  a  common  phenomenon  at  Ipswich 
beach  as  in  all  seashore  regions.  Cape  Ann  is 
often  distorted  by  mirage  and  the  low  shores  and 
houses  of  the  New  Hampshire  coast  are  elevated 
so  that  they  appear  like  lofty  cliffs,  interrupted 
with  numerous  water-falls.  The  distant  Isles  of 
Shoals,  visible  only  on  clear  days,  are  raised  up 
so  as  to  look  like  a  city,  dominated  by  the  lofty 
lighthouse  column.  Mt.  Agamentacus  in  Maine 
resembles  a  huge   and  flattened   inverted  bowl. 


HUDSONIA    IN    BLOSSOM 


DUSTY    MILLER 


IN  THE  DUNES  9 

Sometimes  it  seems  suspended  between  sky  and 
sea.  On  days  when  the  sea  is  dark  blue  and  the 
sky  pale  blue,  fading  to  white  at  the  horizon,  dis- 
tant shores  and  hulls  of  vessels  often  appear 
lifted  up,  and  a  narrow  ribbon  of  white  sky 
stretches  beneath. 

All  are  familiar  with  the  classical  tale  of  mi- 
rage in  the  desert,  which  simulates  a  lake  of 
water  to  the  thirsty  traveller.  Several  times  I 
have  seen  a  similar  mirage  at  Ipswich  beach. 
One  was  so  perfect  that  I  was  completely  de- 
ceived, and  wondered  how  this  lake  of  calm,  un- 
ruffled water  could  have  sprung  up  over  night  in 
the  expanse  of  sand.  The  illusion  was  intensi- 
fied by  some  gulls  who  appeared  to  be  wading 
and  swimming  in  the  water.  As  I  approached, 
the  lake  receded  and  finally  vanished. 

At  night  there  is  a  gentle  mystery  and  a  sense 
of  primeval  grandeur  in  the  sand  dunes  that  sur- 
passes the  mystery  and  the  grandeur  of  the  day. 
It  is  good  for  the  soul  to  escape  from  the  conven- 
tionalities of  life  and  lose  itself  in  darkness  in 
this  waste  of  sand.  Like  a  wolf,  turning  and 
shaping  his  form  in  the  grass  before  he  lies  down. 


lo  BEACH  GRASS 

so  the  dune-lover  shapes  his  form  in  the  sand, 
hollowing  places  for  his  shoulders  and  hips.  Ly- 
ing thus  in  his  mold,  securely  wrapt  in  his 
blanket,  on  the  crest  of  a  dune  wave,  he  sees  the 
sun  set,  the  blue  eclipse  of  the  sky  by  the  earth 
rise  in  the  East,  and  the  pink  glow  overhead  and 
in  the  West  gradually  fade.  Swallows  in  strag- 
gling bands  and  in  great  multitudes,  hastening  to 
their  night  roost,  skim  close  by,  sometimes  within 
a  hair's  breadth  of  his  face.  The  dark,  ungrace- 
ful forms  of  night  herons  pass  over  with  slow 
wing-flaps  and  discordant  croaks,  and  the  stars 
come  out  until  the  whole  vault  of  heaven  is 
aglow.  Those  who  dwell  in  caves,  in  deep  can- 
yons or  in  rooms  in  city  streets,  know  not  the 
brilliancy  of  the  heavens  as  revealed  to  those 
who  lie  out  under  the  stars.     They  know  not : 

''The  silence  that  is  in  the  starry  sky. 
The  sleep  that  is  among  the  lonely  hills''' 

The  laughing  cry  of  the  loon  comes  to  his  ears 
from  the  sea  and  the  noisy  clamor  of  a  great 
company  of  herring  gulls,  gossiping  with  each 
other  as  they  settle  down   for   a  night  on   the 


IN  THE  DUNES  1 1 

shore.  Sandpipers  and  plovers  whistle  as  they 
fly  over,  and  the  lisping  notes  of  warblers,  mi- 
grating from  the  sterile  cold  of  the  North,  drop 
from  above.  Forming  a  continuous  background 
to  these  voices  is  the  boom  and  the  crash  of  the 
waves  on  the  sea  beach. 

All  too  soon  he  sinks  into  a  gentle  slumber,  to 
awake  perchance  in  the  night  and  hear  the  pass- 
ing birds  still  calling  to  each  other,  and  the  surf 
still  booming,  and  to  watch  the  flickering  rays 
of  the  aurora  waving  its  ghostly  arms  overhead, 
or  a  meteor  as  it  streaks  across  the  sky.  At  dawn 
he  arouses  himself  and  finds  everything  about  him 
soaked  in  dew.  The  radiation  into  the  clear 
cloudless  sky  has  reduced  the  temperature  many 
degrees  with  the  consequent  condensation  of 
moisture.  Beads  of  dew  stand  out  over  his 
blanket,  the  grass  blades  drip  with  it  and  pit  the 
sand  below,  and  his  frying-pan,  beside  the  cold, 
sand-quenched  fire,  is  dotted  with  drops  of  water. 
He  has  covered  his  binoculars,  note-book  case 
and  knife  with  his  hat  and  has  saved  them  from 
a  soaking. 

The  air  is  crisp  and  cold.     Tree  swallows  and, 


12  BEACH  GRASS 

later,  barn  swallows  rise  up  in  clouds  from  the 
dune  thicket  near  at  hand  and  salute  the  sun 
which,  although  still  invisible  from  the  sand, 
lights  up  their  plumage  on  high.  The  red  glow 
in  the  East  begins  to  pale.  It  loses  its  brilliant 
carmine  hue,  fades  to  rose  and  to  yellow  and  to 
cold  straw  color,  and  the  great  globe  of  the  sun 
appears  above  the  horizon. 

It  is  time  for  him  to  arise  if  he  would  take 
advantage  of  the  oblique  rays  of  the  sun  to  study 
the  story  of  the  night  in  the  tracks  in  the  sand. 
The  sand  is  moist  with  dew  and  holds  every 
faintest  impression  like  molders'  wax.  The 
wind  has  not  yet  arisen  to  mar  these  impressions 
by  drying  and  crumbling  them,  or  by  filling  them 
with  blowing  sand.  The  oblique  rays  of  the 
sun,  casting  shadows  in  the  faintest  indentations, 
bring  out  with  startling  clearness  tracks  that  are 
all  but  invisible  when  the  sun  is  overhead. 

Near  at  hand  are  tracks  of  small  birds  that 
have  paused  for  a  moment,  but  have  departed  in 
haste  alarmed  by  the  attributes  of  man.  An 
unsuspecting  white-footed  mouse  has  jumped 
along,  leaving  the  tracks  of  a  miniature  rabbit. 


IN  THE  DUNES  13 

A  plodding  toad,  patiently  pursuing  its  direct 
course,  has  traced  its  footsteps  near  the  head  of 
the  sleeper.  A  skunk,  that  knight  of  the  night 
sans  peur,  on  account  of  his  armor  of  scent,  and, 
in  this  case,  at  least,  sans  reproche,  has  ambled 
leisurely  by.  One  may  be  sure  that  no  fox  or 
deer  tracks  will  be  found  near,  except  perhaps 
on  the  windward  side.  The  sense  of  smell  in 
these  animals  is  too  keen  to  permit  them  to  run 
any  risks. 

At  the  time  of  the  full  moon  the  fascination  of 
the  sand  dunes  is  increased  to  a  superlative  de- 
gree. The  whiteness  of  the  sand  augments  the 
brilliancy  of  the  moonlight,  just  as  is  the  case 
when  the  landscape  is  white  with  snow.  Such  a 
night  was  that  of  September  25  and  26,  1920. 
It  was  calm  and  warm,  68°  Farenheit  by  the 
cricket  thermometer.^  As  I  wandered  alone 
about  the  dunes,  listening  to  the  voices  of  the 
birds  passing  overhead,  and  of  those  on  the  shore 
and  sea,  I  was  alert  for  a  glimpse  of  night- 
wandering  animals  whose  tracks  were  clearly  vis- 
ible   by    moonlight.     Exposing    a    photographic 

1  See  page  2oi. 


14  BEACH  GRASS 

plate  for  twenty  minutes  to  the  mysterious  scene, 
I  patiently  waited  and  watched  during  this  in- 
terval but  saw  no  track-maker.  The  sky  on  the 
sandy  horizon — on  the  crest  of  a  sand  wave — 
looked  black  in  comparison  with  the  white  sand, 
but  this  starless  darkness  soon  merged  into  the 
vault  of  the  heavens  with  its  suggestion  of  blue, 
studded  sparsely  with  stars.  Only  those  of 
greater  magnitude  showed  in  the  brilliant  light 
of  the  moon;  the  light  of  the  lesser  ones  was 
quenched.  We  pay  for  the  light  of  the  full 
moon  by  loss  of  starlight  just  as  we  pay  for  sun- 
shine by  loss  of  moonlight.  About  five  in  the 
morning  the  moon  set  large  and  red,  and  the 
lesser  as  well  as  the  greater  stars  blazed  out,  and 
the  path  of  the  Milky  Way  appeared  across  the 
heavens. 

After  a  period  of  unfavorable  wind  or  weather, 
?.  perfect  night  may  come  when  the  floodgates  of 
bird  migration  are  opened,  and  the  pent-up  mul- 
titudes, waiting  for  this  chance,  pour  along  the 
aerial  channels.  Such  a  night  followed  Septem- 
ber 9,  1916,  and  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  spend 
it   in   the   dunes   and   on   the   beach.     The   air. 


THE  DUNES  BY  MOONLIGHT  {twenty  mimite  exposure) 


BEACH  GRASS 


IN  THE  DUNES  15 

blown  as  clear  as  crystal  by  a  sparkling  north- 
west wind,  and  illuminated  by  the  full  moon, 
and  its  reflection  from  the  sea  and  white  sand, 
made  the  night  almost  as  light  as  day.  There 
was  a  brilliancy  and  ethereal  quality  suggestive 
of  fairyland.  Such  nights  as  these  fill  one  with 
rapture  at  the  marvelous  beauty  and  mystery  of 
the  sand  dunes. 

During  the  evening  it  was  evident  that  a  large 
migration  of  small  birds  was  taking  place  along 
this  highway  by  the  seashore  as  the  air  was  filled 
with  bird  calls  that  showered  down  from  the  sky, 
but,  peer  as  I  would,  the  birds  themselves  re- 
mained invisible,  notwithstanding  the  apparent 
brilliancy  of  the  air.  Only  as  they  cross  the  face 
of  the  moon  are  such  small  bodies  to  be  discerned. 

The  tide  was  at  its  lowest  ebb  and,  on  the 
hard,  broad  floor  of  wet  sand  scattered  shore 
birds  were  feeding.  The  short  sharp  note  of  the 
sanderling,  the  rasping  ai-ah  of  the  turnstone  and 
the  double  whistle  of  the  ring-necked  plover 
sounded  from  time  to  time  above  the  roar  of  the 
waves.  No  need  for  these  birds  to  migrate  by 
night  as  they  are  well  able  to  feed  at  that  period. 


i6  BEACH  GRASS 

1  made  a  salty,  springy  bed  of  dried  eel  grass, 
thatch  and  Irish  moss  on  the  soft  upper  beach, 
on  which  I  spread  my  sleeping  bag.  Although 
at  evening  and  at  morning  the  sea  was  separated 
from  my  bed  by  nearly  a  quarter  of  mile  of 
beach,  about  midnight  I  was  dimly  aware  that 
the  waves  were  pounding  and  roaring  ominously 
not  far  from  my  feet.  At  this  uncertain  time  of 
night  the  bird  calls  above  still  proclaimed  the 
passing  hosts. 

When  I  awoke  for  the  day  I  watched  the  sun 
rise  over  the  sea,  and  I  realized  in  the  absence  of 
bird  calls  that  the  flight  for  the  night  was  over, 
and  that  the  birds  had  settled  for  the  day  for  rest 
and  food. 

My  steps  were  first  directed  to  the  nearest 
thicket,  for  it  was  evident  that  most  of  the  birds 
would  seek  the  shelter  of  trees  and  bushes.  On 
the  way  I  came  upon  some  pipits  that  had  ar- 
rived during  the  night,  very  probably  from  Lab- 
rador, and  had  found  congenial  surroundings  on 
the  bare  sand  amid  tufts  of  beach  grass.  In  a 
thicket  less  than  half  an  acre  in  extent  of  alder 
and  gray  birch,  with  an  undergrowth  of  bayberry, 


IN  THE  DUNES  17 

wild  rose,  staghorn  sumach  and  poison  ivy,  sur- 
rounded by  a  threatening  mass  of  bare  dunes, 
was  an  assembly  of  birds  that  made  the  day  a 
red-letter  one  for  me,  and  still  thrills  me  with 
pleasure  when  I  think  of  it.  The  trees  and 
bushes  and  the  bare  white  patches  of  sand  be- 
neath seemed  filled  with  birds — not  a  flock  of  one 
kind  but  of  many  different  kinds.  For  several 
hours  I  wandered  enchanted  through  this  di- 
minutive grove,  retracing  and  crossing  my  steps 
again  and  again,  led  on  by  the  sight  and  calls 
of  the  birds.  At  times  I  looked  down  on  the  tops 
of  the  trees  from  the  encoaching  dunes,  and  at 
times  I  sat  on  the  sand  under  the  trees  and 
watched  the  birds  come  and  go  about  me. 

The  interesting  group  of  warblers  took  first 
rank  in  this  assembly.  Myrtle  warblers  and 
black-polls,  both  in  their  simple  winter  plum- 
ages, were  abundant.  One  myrtle  warbler  was, 
however,  in  the  full  regalia  of  the  spring.  It  is 
not  surprising  that  the  black-poll  in  the  fall  was 
at  first  unrecognized  by  Audubon  and  called  the 
autumnal  warbler.  In  the  autumn  the  country 
is  often  flooded  with  them  and  their  characteris- 


i8  BEACH  GRASS 

tic  call  notes  are  to  be  heard  on  every  hand. 
Their  plumage  at  this  time  is  entirely  unlike  that 
of  the  spring.  A  redstart,  a  Maryland  yellow- 
throat,  a  Nashville  and  a  parula  warbler  were  of 
this  company,  and  magnolia  warblers,  spreading 
their  tails  and  showing  the  white  median  bands, 
were  common.  In  a  dark  thicket,  a  splendid 
male  black-throated  blue  warbler  revealed  him- 
self to  me  by  the  white  spots  on  his  wings.  Pres- 
ently he  hopped  into  the  light  where  I  could  ad- 
mire his  trig  figure,  black  throat  and  blue  back. 
The  commoner  black-throated  green  warbler  in 
winter  plumage  with  his  black  throat  entirely 
concealed  by  white  feather  tips  was  represented 
by  several  individuals. 

I  have  left  to  the  end  three  rarer  species  of 
warblers,  any  one  of  which  is  worth  a  long  trip 
to  see.  One  of  these,  the  Tennessee  warbler,  is, 
in  the  adult  stage,  one  of  the  most  obscurely 
marked  of  all  warblers,  a  plain  gray  and  white 
bird,  but  the  two  individuals  in  this  favored 
grove  were  young  of  the  year,  and  so  yellow  that 
an  observer,  unfamiliar  with  this  phase,  would 
be  sorely  puzzled.     The  first  time  I  saw  this  ju- 


IN  THE  DUNES  19 

venile  plumage  was  on  a  steamer  bound  back 
from  Labrador,  where,  during  a  fog,  a  couple  of 
young  and  very  yellow  Tennessee  warblers  flitted 
about  the  deck  almost  within  arm's  reach. 

The  two  other  warblers  are  both  strikingly 
marked  birds  in  full  adult  male  plumage,  but  are 
both  difficult  to  recognize  in  their  juvenile  dress. 
One,  the  bay-breasted,  in  this  phase  resembles 
strikingly  the  black-poll  warbler  in  its  autumnal 
phase,  but  the  individual  who  displayed  itself  to 
my  delighted  gaze  and  turned  with  great  accom- 
modation first  one  side  and  then  the  other  to  me, 
showed  a  faint  streak  of  reddish  brown  or  bay 
on  each  side. 

The  last  of  this  group,  a  Cape  May  warbler, 
I  saw  at  four  different  times  and  places  in  the 
grove,  and  I  am  still  in  doubt  whether  it  was  al- 
ways the  same  bird  or  four  different  ones.  It  is 
perhaps  safe  to  say  that  there  were  at  least  two 
individuals.  The  Cape  May  warbler  in  juvenile 
plumage  has  but  the  faintest  traces  of  the  tiger- 
like markings  on  its  face,  and,  with  its  spotted 
sides  and  yellow  rump,  it  resembles  rather  closely 
the  maiinolia  warbler  in  the  same  stage.     The 


20  BEACH  GRASS 

black  spots  are  less  black  and  the  yellow  of  the 
breast  less  vivid  than  in  the  magnolia  warbler, 
and,  instead  of  having  a  subterminal  band  of 
white  on  its  tail,  the  Cape  May  has  white  on  the 
outside  feathers  only. 

Warblers  are  fascinating  birds  and  form  an  in- 
teresting and  clearly  marked  group.  They  are 
abundant  not  only  in  number  of  individuals  but 
in  number  of  species.  In  the  full  nuptial  plum- 
age of  spring  and  early  summer  many  of  them 
are  as  striking  in  the  brilliancy  of  their  coloring 
and  markings  as  some  of  the  tropical  orchids. 
One  would  suppose  they  would  be  well  known 
by  those  who  live  in  or  visit  the  country,  but  it 
is  an  astonishing  fact  that  they  are  rarely  seen 
except  by  those  who  look  for  them  and  have  cul- 
tivated habits  of  observation.  I  am  confident 
that  many  people  would  have  walked  through 
this  grove  of  mine,  filled  with  birds  as  it  was, 
and  seen  none  there,  or  have  noticed  a  few  "spar- 
rows." Sometimes  a  brilliantly  arrayed  war- 
bler, perhaps  a  redstart  or  a  magnolia  warbler, 
species  which  pour  through  our  groves  in  thou- 
sands,  suddenly  pops  out  within  a  few  feet  of 


IN  THE  DUNES  21 

such  a  person,  directly  in  their  field  of  vision  so 
that  they  actually  see  it  and  can  not  help  them- 
selves, and  they  report  they  have  seen  "a  most 
extraordinary  bird,  doubtless  a  waif  blown  from 
the  tropics."  As  to  the  call  notes  and  song  of 
warblers,  they  are  as  if  they  did  not  exist  to  such 
a  person.  Even  if  he  is  silent  and  does  not 
drown  out  the  bird  voices  by  his  own,  his  audi- 
tory apparatus  appears  to  be  insensible  to  the 
notes  of  warblers  and  of  nearly  all  other  birds. 
However,  he  does  not  realize  his  loss. 

In  the  group  of  thrushes,  four  representatives 
were  present  in  this  oasis,  namely  the  robin 
and  veery  and  olive-backed  and  gray-cheeked 
thrushes.  The  last  named  bird  looked  so  small 
I  am  inclined  to  think  it  was  a  Bicknell's  rather 
than  an  Alice's  thrush.  These  two  birds  are 
alike  in  plumage  with  gray  cheeks,  but  the  Bick- 
nell's is  a  little  bit  smaller. 

A  solitary  vireo  with  his  dark,  slate-blue  head 
and  his  white  eye-rings  appeared  at  close  range. 
In  the  sparrow  family,  juncos  with  their  twitter- 
ing notes  and  flashing  white  tail  feathers  were 
most   in   evidence.     The    whistling   call    of   the 


22  BEACH  GRASS 

white-throated  sparrow  came  out  of  the  thicket 
and  it  was  apparent  they  were  present  in  consid- 
erable numbers.  Although  both  of  these  birds 
have  on  rare  occasions  bred  as  far  south  as  Essex 
County,  it  is  unusual  to  find  them  in  numbers  at 
such  an  early  date  in  the  fall.  A  few  Savannah 
sparrows  and  goldfinches  completed  the  list  of 
twenty-two  different  species  in  this  circumscribed 
area.  A  half  a  dozen  more  species  are,  however, 
to  be  added  as  they  were  seen  or  heard  as 
they  flew  over:  namely,  purple  finch,  tree  and 
barn  swallow,  herring  gull,  pipit,  and  duck 
hawk.  The  hawk  struck  terror  to  all  the 
birds  in  the  grove  as  he  skimmed  low  over  the 
trees,  but  my  presence,  probably,  prevented  a 
catastrophe. 

Nearly  all  the  twenty-eight  species  enumer- 
ated were  birds  that  are  not  found  in  summer  in 
this  sand  dune  region  and  it  is  probable  that  even 
the  Maryland  yellow-throat,  robin,  song  and 
Savannah  sparrows,  purple  finches,  and  gold- 
finches, tree  and  bam  swallows  were  also  mi- 
grants from  the  North. 

Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  all  my  nights  spent 


IN  THE  DUNES  23 

in  the  sand  dunes  have  been  as  poetical  as  the  fore- 
going. Two  stand  out  in  my  memory  that  were 
far  from  it.  On  one  of  these,  in  a  summer  of 
plentiful  rains,  I  fashioned  my  mold  in  the  lee 
of  a  clump  of  beach  grass  on  the  top  of  a  dune 
and  composed  myself  to  sleep.  But,  alas,  mos- 
quitoes in  great  multitudes  gathered  about  my 
devoted  head.  Oil  of  citronella,  plentifully  ap- 
plied, failed  to  deter  them — I  could  hear  them 
splashing  in  it  on  my  face.  Their  actions  re- 
minded me  of  Labrador.  A  move  to  the  breezy 
side  of  the  grass  in  a  seal-like  manner,  by  squirm- 
ing and  flopping  in  my  sleeping-bag  was  equally 
unsuccessful.  I  then  took  up  my  bed  and 
walked  to  what  I  considered  the  most  wind- 
swept spot  on  the  side  of  the  dune.  But,  as 
grains  of  sand  driven  by  the  wind  come  to  rest 
behind  any  obstruction,  so  the  mosquitoes  gath- 
ered in  my  lee  and  proceeded  to  the  slaughter.  I 
tried  several  equally  unsuccessful  moves  during 
the  night  which  was  also  enlivened  by  several 
showers. 

On  another  occasion  when  the  wind  was  a  gen- 
tle and  a  warm  one  from  the  southwest,  I  went 


24  BEACH  GRASS 

to  sleep  on  the  northerly  side  of  a  dune,  very 
comfortably  wrapt  in  a  thin  blanket.  In  a  few 
hours  I  was  awakened,  chilled  to  the  marrow  of 
my  bones  by  a  strong  wind  from  the  cold  north- 
west. Several  times  that  night  I  moved,  chased 
around  the  dune  by  the  searching  and  changeable 
wind,  and  always  cold.  To  complete  my  dis- 
comfiture, my  mug  of  hot  coffee  at  breakfast, 
which  I  had  tasted  only  in  anticipation,  over- 
turned and  the  delectable  fluid  sank  into  the  il- 
limitable sand.  I  must,  however,  have  had  con- 
siderable sleep  on  both  of  these  nights  as  I  felt 
fresh  and  rested  the  next  day,  and  I  suffered  no 
ill  effects  in  this  germless  air  from  being,  on  the 
second  occasion,  so  thoroughly  chilled.  I  was 
certainly  cold  but  caught  no  cold. 

It  has  been  said  with  truth  that  adventures  are 
generally  due  to  insufficient  preparation.  If  I 
had  brought  a  head-net  on  the  first  night  and 
more  bed  clothing  on  the  second,  I  should  have 
had  no  adventures  to  relate. 

The  most  inspiring  and  exciting  sound  made 
by  migrating  birds  is  that  which  comes  from  a 
flock  of  Canada  geese.     In  the  distance  a  faint 


IN  THE  DUNES  25 

sound  is  heard,  it  comes  nearer  and  nearer — the 
sound  of  many  voices — of  hounds  in  the  chase, 
of  brazen  instruments,  the  honking  of  geese,  a 
multitude  talking  at  once.  The  sound  grows 
louder  and  louder.  I  rush  out  of  a  bushy 
thicket,  where  the  trees  obscure  the  sky,  and 
climb  to  the  peak  of  the  nearest  dune.  Here 
come  the  birds,  a  hundred  or  more  of  them,  now 
in  a  long  line  abreast,  now  in  perfect  V-shape, 
now  massing  together  in  a  loose  flock.  They 
sweep  on  in  glorious  strength  of  wing  and  pass 
overhead  and  the  babel  of  tongues  is  almost  a 
deafening  clangor,  and  the  sight  of  the  great 
birds,  each  with  his  long  neck  stretched  eagerly 
towards  his  home  in  the  northland,  becomes  an 
inspiration.  The  voices  grow  less  loud,  become 
faint  and  occasional  and  then  cease.  All  is  quiet 
again  but  the  sight  and  the  sound  of  this  migrat- 
mg  flock  are  long  to  be  treasured  in  the  memory. 

"How  oft  against  the  sunset  sky  or  moon 
I  watched  that  moving  zig-zag  of  spread  wings 
In  unforgotten  autumns  gone  too  soon. 
In  unforgotten  springs! 


26  BEACH  GRASS 

''Creatures  of  desolation!     Far  they  fly 
Above  all  lands  bound  by  the  curling  foam. 
In  misty  fens,  wild  moors  and  trackless  sky 
These  wild  things  have  their  home, 

''Dark  flying  rune  against  the  western  glow 
It  tells  the  sweep  and  loneliness  of  things, 
Symbol  of  autumns  vanished  long  ago, 
Symbol  of  coming  springs^ 

The  work  of  the  Audubon  Societies  is  bearing 
fruit.  No  longer  are  the  plumes  torn  from  the 
nesting  egret.  The  bird  is  increasing  again  in 
numbers  and,  after  the  breeding  season  in  the 
South,  occasionally  wanders  to  the  North.  In  the 
last  dozen  years  there  have  been  several  incur- 
sions of  this  great  bird  from  the  South.  On  an 
October  day  in  1919  I  was  so  fortunate  as  to 
flush  one  of  these  splendid  birds  from  a  bog  in 
the  dunes.  Pure  white  with  the  exception  of 
black  legs  and  yellow  bill,  as  large  as  the  great 
blue  heron,  it  was  an  impressive  sight  as  it  rose, 
slowly  doubled  up  its  long  neck,  extended  behind 
its  black  legs,  and  flew  out  over  the  marshes.  An 
hour  later,  from  my  house,  I  discovered  it  wad- 


IN  THE  DUNES  27 

ing  about  in  the  tide  on  the  marshes.  Fifteen 
years  ago  this  bird,  if  discovered  by  a  gunner, 
would  have  been  shot  and  taken  to  a  taxidermist 
to  be  stuffed.  Now-a-days  these  birds  give  joy 
to  an  increasing  class  of  nature  lovers,  and  they 
are  able  to  repeat  their  visits.  In  the  summer  of 
iy2i,  no  less  than  six  of  these  beautiful  birds 
were  to  be  seen  in  the  salt  marshes. 

An  interesting  migration  day  in  the  dunes  fell 
to  my  lot  in  mid-March.  Some  six  short-eared 
owls  were  tarrying  on  their  way  North.  Never 
before  had  I  seen  more  than  two  in  a  day's  travel 
in  the  dunes.  The  seaside  grasshopper  and  toad, 
the  Ipswich  sparrow  and  piping  plover  are  well 
adapted  to  concealment  in  the  sand,  but  the 
short-eared  owl  surpasses  them  all.  Like  them 
it  is  somewhat  sandy  colored,  but  it  bears  at  times 
a  most  striking  resemblance  to  a  lichen-crusted 
stump  or  a  snow-flecked  bit  of  driftwood.  An 
ornithological  friend  was  enjoying  with  me  the 
sight  of  these  birds  and  commented  on  their  close 
resemblance  to  stumps  as  they  sat  on  the  dunes 
amid  tufts  of  beach  grass.  One  of  them  we  had 
watched  and  seen  fly  away,  and,  after  we  had  re- 


28  BEACH  GRASS 

marked  that  an  obvious  stump  near,  with  patches 
of  snow  on  it,  closely  resembled  a  sitting 
owl,  the  stump  opened  its  wings  and  flew 
away  I 

That  great  owl  from  the  white  North,  the 
snowy  owl,  I  have  been  privileged  to  see  a  num- 
ber of  times  in  the  dunes,  and  have  described 
some  of  these  encounters  in  "Sand  Dunes  and 
Salt  Marshes."  On  a  January  day  in  1913  I 
saw  one  of  these  great  birds,  a  rather  dark  in- 
dividual, sitting  on  a  dune  top  near  Eagle  Dune. 
I  stalked  him  within  fifty  yards,  when  he  arose, 
and,  in  the  strong  wind,  poised  motionless  like  a 
kite.  His  great  wings  and  tail  were  spread  to 
the  full  extent  and  the  tips  of  the  larger  feathers 
of  the  wings  were  bent  up  with  the  air  pressure. 
Alternately  gliding  and  flapping,  he  skimmed  low 
over  the  beach  grass,  occasionally  stretching  his 
neck  and  lifting  his  great  round  head  above  the 
level  of  the  back  and  looking  about.  Twice  he 
alighted  on  the  dunes,  sitting  not  erect  as  this 
bird  is  usually  depicted,  but  with  body  inclined 
at  the  angle  of  about  forty-five  degrees.  The 
next  December  I  watched  another  snowy  owl  in 


.;-i»lk''       ^'^-rW^ 

'    ^^^^^''V  •■'•*^«' 

"^^\    ^               _,'»k  .;^^n9P^ 

i ;  ^:'Ml?i:'<-  ■. ' 

YOUNG    LONG-EARED    OWL 


ANCIENT   WtLLOW 


IN  THE  DUNES  29 

the  dunes  mobbed  by  a  large  flock  of  snow  bunt- 
ings that  swirled  about  him  and  darted  down 
toward  him  as  he  sat  serene  on  a  dune  top.  The 
only  time  I  have  seen  this  bird  alight  in  a  tree 
was  on  a  December  day  in  1918  when  one  flew 
over  the  marshes  within  plain  sight  of  my  house, 
cHud  perched  on  the  tallest  tree  on  a  marsh  island. 

In  June,  1917,  a  pair  of  long-eared  owls  nested 
in  the  pitch  pine  grove  to  the  northeast  of  Wig- 
wam Hill.  They  occupied  an  old  crow's  nest  in 
a  pine  about  twenty  feet  from  the  ground,  and 
brought  up  three  solemn  looking  young  that  were 
at  first  clad  in  white  down.  Their  faces  were 
dark  and  their  downy  ear  tufts  were  plainly  vis- 
ible even  at  this  early  age.  One  of  the  old  birds 
flew  anxiously  about  among  the  trees,  uttering 
low,  complaining  notes  which  suggested  the  bark- 
ing of  a  puppy. 

The  interesting  fact  about  this  family  of  owls 
was  their  diet,  and  of  this  they  made  a  very  good 
record  in  the  numerous  pellets  of  undigested  food 
that  they  cast  up  and  were  found  around  the  foot 
of  the  tree.  Their  habits  were  not  hygienic,  for 
the  nest  itself  was  covered,  several  layers  deep, 


30  BEACH  GRASS 

like  stratifications,  with  the  fur,  feathers,  and 
bones  of  their  victims.  All  of  these  I  collected 
with  care  after  the  birds  had  left  the  nest,  and 
sent  them  to  the  Biological  Survey  in  Washing- 
ton for  identification.  The  result  was  most  sur- 
prising and  is  interesting  to  record  here.  This 
family  of  owls  had  been  fed  on  two  red-winged 
blackbirds,  one  each  of  the  following  kinds  of 
sparrows — the  sharp-tailed,  Savannah,  vesper 
and  chipping — on  two  song  sparrows,  one  che- 
wink,  one  pine  warbler,  one  Maryland  yellow- 
throat  and  two  other  unidentified  warblers,  two 
thrushes,  a  brown  thrasher  and  four  other  small 
birds  not  identified;  also  on  three  short-tailed 
shrews,  one  white-footed  mouse,  eleven  jumping 
mice,  and  eleven  meadow  mice.  In  other  words, 
the  refuse  from  the  owl  table  showed  that  over 
thirteen  different  kinds  of  birds  had  been  eaten 
and  twenty-three  individuals;  also  four  species 
of  mammals  and  twenty-five  individuals. 

Fisher  in  his  classic  on  the  "Hawks  and  Owls 
of  the  United  States"  says:  *'The  Long-eared 
Owl  is  one  of  our  most  beneficial  species,  destroy- 
ing vast  numbers  of  injurious  rodents  and  seldom 


IN  THE  DUNES  31 

touching  insectivorous  birds."  This  dune  fam- 
ily belongs  in  another  category,  and  Mr.  E.  \N'. 
Nelson  of  the  Biological  Survey,  commenting  on 
these  findings,  wrote  me  that  "It  is  very  unusual 
to  find  the  long-eared  owl  feeding  upon  birds  to 
such  an  extent.  In  a  large  number  of  pellets  ex- 
amined from  winter  roosts  of  these  birds,  we 
have  found  the  bird  remains  making  up  consid- 
erably less  than  ten  per  cent,  of  the  total  animal 
contents.  The  owls  in  question  must  have  had 
exceptional  opportunities  to  secure  birds,  and  the 
breeding  season  may  also  have  had  some  effect 
in  producing  this  habit."  The  Ipswich  dunes 
are,  as  I  have  always  maintained,  particularly 
good  regions  for  birds,  and  these  owls  seem  to 
have  had  the  instincts  of  collectors. 

There  are  several  heronries  near  Ipswich,  one 
at  Plum  Island,  one  at  Hamilton,  one  at  North 
Beverly,  but  an  interesting  and,  I  believe,  the 
largest  is  one  I  have  watched  from  its  beginning 
in  a  grove  in  the  Ipswich  dunes.  This  grove  is 
composed  almost  entirely  of  pitch  pines,  but 
there  are  a  few  white  birches  and  white  maples 
among  them.     The  fishing  is  good  in  the  neigh- 


32  BEACH  GRASS 

boring  creeks  and  estuaries,  and  night  herons 
from  distant  heronries  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
taking  their  noonday  siestas  in  these  trees  for 
many  years.  In  the  summer  of  1916,  I  found 
several  pairs  had  nested  there,  and  counted 
twenty-five  nests.  In  1917,  I  counted  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty-seven  nests,  and,  as  the  number 
of  birds  was  rapidly  increasing,  I  determined,  in 
1918,  to  make  a  careful  census  of  nests  after  the 
birds  had  flown.  With  the  help  of  two  boys,  I 
began  one  cold  December  day  to  count  the  nests 
in  each  tree,  and,  that  we  might  not  count  the 
same  tree  twice,  we  tied  a  white  string  around 
the  trunk  of  each  counted  tree.  This  proved 
slow  work  and  very  cold  for  the  fingers.  As 
there  was  a  light  snow  on  the  ground,  we  found 
that  by  stamping  the  snow  at  the  foot  of  the 
trunk,  we  could  quickly  and  effectually  mark  the 
tree.  In  this  way  the  count  was  accurate  as  far 
as  it  went,  but  we  probably  overlooked  a  few 
trees  on  the  periphery  of  the  roost.  Here  are 
the  results:  492  nesting  trees  containing  one  to 
eight  nests  each,  and  a  total  of  761  nests.  The 
nests  varied  in  size  from  thin,  flimsy  affairs  to 


NIGHT    HERONS     NESTS 


NIGHT  herons'   NEST  WITH   EGGS 


1 


IN  THE  DUNES  33 

thick  bulky  masses  of  twigs  so  completely  inter- 
woven as  to  stand  a  good  deal  of  rough  handling 
without  coming  to  pieces. 

The  point  of  vantage  from  which  to  view  the 
heronry  at  the  height  of  the  season  is  from  the 
top  of  Wigwam  Hill.  Below  stretch  the  green 
tops  of  the  pines,  dotted,  as  with  splendid  white 
blossoms,  by  the  beautiful  birds  that  stand  on 
the  tree-tops  near  their  nests  and  brooding  mates. 
When  one  enters  the  heronry  on  foot,  the  scene 
is  not  so  enchanting,  and  one's  ears  are  assailed 
by  strange  and  discordant  sounds,  one's  nostrils 
by  odors  ancient  and  hshlike.  Everything  is 
whitewashed  here  and  one  must  be  wary.  By 
watching  the  actions  of  the  nearly  naked  young 
birds  that  climb  about  the  branches,  one  becomes 
convinced  of  their  recent  reptilian  ancestry. 
Tragedies  among  the  young  are  common  as 
shown  in  the  mummified  corpses,  caught  by  the 
neck  in  the  crotch  of  branches  and  swinging  as 
though  from  gibbets.  Foxes  get  good  hunting  in 
this  region. 

The  inception  and  growth  of  this  heronry  has 
been  most  interesting  and  well  illustrates  the  ad- 


34  BEACH  GRASS 

vantages  of  protection.  A  still  more  striking 
change  has  taken  place  in  this  region  in  the  case 
of  terns,  the  swallows  of  the  sea.  Fifty  years 
ago  terns  of  various  species  laid  their  eggs  on 
the  sand  of  Ipswich  beach  above  the  tides. 
Common,  arctic  and  least  terns  formed  an  inter- 
esting colony  which  was  described  in  1870  in  his 
''Naturalist's  Guide"  by  Charles  J.  Maynard,  the 
discoverer  of  the  Ipswich  sparrow.  Wanton  per- 
secution by  gunners,  the  shooting  of  the  birds  in 
sport  and  the  taking  of  the  eggs  for  food  and  as 
curiosities,  and,  above  all,  the  systematic  slaugh- 
ter for  millinery  purposes  extirpated  these  birds 
here,  and  brought  them  to  the  verge  of  extinction 
along  the  whole  Atlantic  coast. 

As  regards  the  subject  of  bird  protection,  it  is 
interesting  and  encouraging  to  compare  the  state 
of  mind  and  moral  sense  of  people  in  general  at 
that  time  and  today.  The  sportsman,  with  a 
long  autumn,  winter  and  spring  season,  as  a  rule 
respected  the  close  season  for  game  birds,  but  for 
birds,  whose  value  today  is  admitted  to  be 
largely  aesthetic,  he  thought  nothing.  If  he  ex- 
terminated   them,    there    was   no    regret.     They 


IN  THE  DUNES  35 

were  of  no  use,  and,  if  they  afforded  good  flying 
marks,  as  did  the  terns,  he  had  no  scruples  about 
shooting  them  and  leaving  their  beautiful  bodies, 
mangled  and  blood-stained,  where  they  fell.  He 
did  not  even  take  the  trouble  to  kill  wounded 
birds  that  had  thus  served  as  his  target.  If  he 
had  feminine  friends  or  relatives  who  would  ap- 
preciate the  graceful  wings  for  their  hats,  he  felt 
even  virtuous  in  destroying  the  birds  for  these 
trophies  and  the  women  thought  no  ill  of  the 
practice.  TTie  fact  that  it  was  the  fashion  to 
wear  these  wings  in  the  hats  dulled  all  thought 
on  the  subject.  The  men  who  went  into  the 
business  of  supplying  the  greedy  millinery  trade 
felt  that  the  cruelty  involved,  if  they  thought  of 
it  at  all,  and  the  possible  total  destruction  of  the 
birds,  was  fully  justified  by  the  dollars  received. 
If  the  adult  terns  were  more  easily  shot  when 
their  nests  were  invaded  or  their  young  put  in 
danger,  then  it  was  laudable  to  take  advantage 
of  these  circumstances.  Any  one  having  scru- 
ples on  this  point  was  an  unreasonable  senti- 
mentalist and  did  not  deserve  the  rewards  of 
business. 


36  BEACH  GRASS 

Today  all  this  is  changed.  Thanks  to  broader 
views  and  the  teachings  of  ornithologists  in  gen- 
eral and  of  the  Audubon  Societies  in  particular, 
and  by  reason  of  laws  enacted  through  their  ef- 
forts, people  are  beginning  to  realize  the  justice 
and  importance  of  preserving  these  birds.  Their 
sense  of  moral  fitness  has  been  aroused,  they  be- 
gin to  feel  the  value  of  the  birds  from  a  purely 
aesthetic  point  of  view  as  adding  beauty  and  in- 
terest to  the  landscape,  although  few  realize  the 
importance  of  preserving  them  as  a  sacred  trust 
for  future  generations. 

In  1921,  by  the  middle  of  May,  terns  had  be- 
come common  at  Ipswich  beach,  arriving  from 
the  South.  On  June  12  there  were  over  three 
hundred  there,  mostly  the  common  species  but 
a  few  roseate  terns  were  to  be  seen.  This  latter 
species  is  easily  distinguished  from  the  common 
tern  by  its  longer,  slimmer  shape,  by  its  bill 
which  is  wholly  black,  instead  of  being  red  with 
a  black  tip,  and  by  its  voice,  for  it  emits  at  fre- 
quent intervals  a  rather  sweet  double  plover-like 
note — tu-wit — and  a  loud  harsh  scream  that 
closely  resembles  that  made  by  tearing  cloth. 


IN  THE  DUNES  37 

On  this  June  day  I  sat  on  the  sand  within 
sixty  yards  of  a  flock  of  over  a  hundred  terns 
that  had  alighted  on  the  water's  edge.  It  was  at 
once  apparent  that  the  birds  were  preparing  to 
breed,  as  many  of  them  were  engaged  in  active 
courtship.  As  the  sexes  are  alike  in  plumage  one 
could  distinguish  the  males  from  the  females  only 
by  their  actions,  but  these  actions  were  distinc- 
tive. With  short  mincing  steps  a  male  would 
strut  before  a  demure  female.  His  puffed  out 
neck  and  his  head  were  stretched  up  to  the  full 
extent,  and  his  open  bill  was  continually  vibrat- 
ing as  he  uttered  rasping  crrrs.  His  long  tail 
was  cocked  up  between  the  wings  which  were  ex- 
tended from  the  body  so  that  the  shoulders  stuck 
out  nearly  horizontally.  At  times  he  side- 
stepped, at  times  he  pirouetted.  Sometimes  two 
or  more  males  were  acting  thus  in  a  group  by 
themselves,  as  if  each  were  trying  to  outvy  the 
others.  Sometimes  two  would  fly  at  each  other 
on  the  beach  like  game-cocks  and  rise  and  con- 
tinue the  flght  in  the  air.  Again  a  male  would 
return  from  fishing  with  a  sand-lance  drooped 
from    his    bill,    and,    after    eluding    rivals    who 


38  BEACH  GRASS 

sought  to  take  the  fish  from  him,  he  would  alight 
close  to  his  beloved  one  and  present  her  with  the 
choice  morsel,  following  up  his  gift  with  court- 
ship antics.  She,  meanwhile,  calmly  and  ap- 
parently without  the  least  concern  for  him,  swal- 
lowed the  tidbit. 

I  fully  expected  to  find  the  terns  laying  their 
eggs  above  the  beach  after  such  actions,  but,  no, 
they  left  for  other  regions.  I  feel,  however,  that 
it  is  only  a  question  of  a  short  time  before  the 
terns  return  to  their  own.  and  again  nest  at  Ips- 
wich beach. 

For  many  years  I  had  enjoyed  squatters'  rights 
in  the  dunes  in  the  possession  of  a  camp.  This 
was  situated  in  the  grove  just  described  which 
had  furnished  such  a  wealth  of  migrating  birds. 
It  is  near  the  southern  end  of  the  dunes,  equi- 
distant from  the  sea  beach  on  the  outside  and  the 
beach  of  the  estuary  on  the  inside.  In  this  camp, 
and  in  tents  near  at  hand,  my  family,  some 
young  friends,  a  poll-parrot,  a  canary  bird  and  I 
spent  August  in  1912.  We  lived  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent off  the  land  and  water.  Fish,  the  common 
clams  and  the  larger  sea  clams,  furnished  much 


IN  THE  DUNES  39 

of  our  food,  and  blackberries  were  abundant.  A 
pump  in  the  camp  brought  us  sweet,  cold  water 
from  a  driven  well  of  thirty  feet,  in  which  the 
water  level  was  just  below  the  surface  of  the 
sand.  Dead  wood  in  the  grove  and  driftwood 
on  the  beach  furnished  our  fire.  Our  bathtub 
was  the  Atlantic  ocean.  We  generally  slept  in 
our  tents  and  in  the  camp  in  the  grove,  but  at 
times,  as  the  mood  seized  us,  around  our  camp 
fire  on  the  top  of  a  dune,  or  on  the  edge  of  the 
sea  beach.  The  gulls  and  terns  and  sandpipers 
were  our  constant  companions.  We  lived  a  free 
and  open-air  existence  on  the  sand  and  in  the 
water,  and  we  were  well  sunned,  sanded,  and 
salted. 

Many  changes  have  taken  place  since  that  day. 
The  squatters  are  banished  and  their  camps  are 
no  more.  Some  of  the  shanties  have  been  re- 
moved bodily  or  in  pieces  by  water,  others  like 
'The  Vendome,"  have  been  covered  by  the  blow- 
ing sand.  A  longer  lease  of  life  was  granted  to 
my  camp,  but,  in  its  isolation,  it  had  been  bat- 
tered and  looted  by  wandering  clammers,  and  the 
dunes  are  rapidly  advancing  to  its  destruction. 


40  BEACH  GRASS 

The  greater  part  of  the  grove  of  trees  has  dis- 
appeared— their  dead  tops  may  still  be  seen  in 
places  nearly  a  hundred  yards  off  in  the  sterile 
dune.  Already  the  sand  is  creeping  close  to  the 
house,  and  it  is  doomed. 

But  it  is  better  so.  There  are  all  too  few  sea- 
shore regions  that  are  unspoiled  by  the  hand  of 
man  and  those  few  are  rapidly  disappearing. 
The  electric  car  and  the  automobile  bring  people 
in  crowds  to  the  seashore.  A  region  of  sand 
dunes  is  covered  with  summer  houses,  tin  cans 
and  Sunday  newspapers,  detestable  to  birds  and 
bird-lovers  alike.  Fortunate  indeed  are  the  birds 
and  bird-lovers  who  can  wander  in  a  region  un- 
marred  and  "unimproved,"  and  grateful  are  they 
to  any  one  who  can  order  such  a  state  of  affairs. 
May  it  always  remain  sol 


CHAPTER  II 

Tracks  in  the  Sand 

''In  the  sand  of  the  hillocks  by  the  loud  sounding  ocean 
He  followed  their  tracks  at  the  break  of  the  day.'' 

— Anon. 

IN  "Sand  Dunes  and  Salt  Marshes"  I  had 
something  to  say  of  tracks  and  tracking 
in  the  dunes,  illustrated  by  photographs. 
Since  this  book  was  published  I  have  continued 
with  ever  increasing  interest  to  track  the  deer  and 
the  fox,  the  skunk  and  the  mouse,  the  gull  and 
the  crow,  the  toad  and  the  grasshopper  and  others 
of  their  ilk  in  the  dunes,  and  shall  here  record 
some  of  my  findings.  One  never  knows  where 
one  may  come  on  an  interesting  story  in  the  sand 
or  one  requiring  some  ingenuity  to  unravel. 

Deer  tracks  are  common  in  the  dunes.  In 
1913,  I  wrote  that  this  animal  "thanks  to  the  well 
enforced  protective  laws,  is  more  abundant  in 
densely  settled  eastern  Massachusetts  than  it  has 

41 


42  BEACH  GRASS 

been  for  over  a  hundred  years,  and  it  is  possible 
that  in  some  localities  it  is  even  more  abundant 
than  has  ever  been  the  case.  For  not  only 
has  white  man  ceased  to  persecute  the  deer,  but  he 
has  eliminated  its  natural  enemies,  such  as 
wolves,  lynxes  and  panthers,  as  well  as  Indians." 
Since  1912,  there  has  been  an  open  season  every 
fall  of  six  days  and  the  slaughter  of  deer  at  first 
was  so  great  that  they  were  all  but  exterminated 
from  this  region.  In  nine  years  two  hundred 
and  twenty  deer  were  shot  in  Essex  County. 

Of  late  years  the  deer  have  increased  again, 
and,  although  rarely  seen,  give  evidence  by  their 
tracks  of  much  night  wandering  in  the  dunes. 
Sometimes  the  tracks  go  straight,  as  if  the  animal 
had  his  objective  point  clearly  in  mind.  As  he 
walks  his  split  hoof — his  third  and  fourth  toes — 
curve  together  so  that  they  nearly  meet.  Each 
hind  foot  falls  so  exactly  into  the  track  of  the  fore 
foot  that  a  duplication  of  marks  is  rarely  seen. 
When  he  runs  and  bounds,  the  split  hoof  spreads 
with  the  harder  impact  of  the  jumps,  and  the 
third  and  fourth  toes  make  almost  parallel  or 
even  diverging,  instead  of  converging  marks.     At 


TRACKS  OF  DEER  WALKING  IN   HARD   SAND 


TRACKS  OF  SAME  DEER  RUNNING  IN   SOFT  SAND 


DEER  TRACKS  IN   HARD  SAND 


DEER  TRACKS  IN    HARD  SAND  DEER  TRACKS  IN    SOFT   SAND 


TRACKS  OF  DOE  AND  FAWN  ABOUT   WATER-HOLE 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  43 

these  times,  especially  if  the  sand  be  soft,  the 
marks  of  the  dew-claws,  rudiments  of  hoofs  on  the 
second  and  hfth  toes,  reach  the  sand  and  leave 
their  imprint,  a  reminder  of  the  ancestral  four- 
toed  condition. 

The  tracks  of  fawns  show  that  they  commonly 
run  beside  the  doe  but  in  a  less  sedate  manner, 
taking  side  trips  and  returning,  and  occasionally, 
in  the  exuberance  of  their  childish  spirits,  bound- 
ing up  into  the  air,  perhaps  sideways,  and  coming 
down  with  all  four  feet  near  together. 

The  study  of  the  tracks  of  these  creatures  is 
interesting,  even  if  one  does  not  catch  a  sight  of 
the  makers.  One  July  day  I  noticed  the  fresh 
tracks  of  a  large  stag  near  the  lighthouse,  and 
picked  them  up  again  two  miles  or  more  down  the 
beach  where  the  animal  was  trotting  from  the 
dunes  towards  the  water.  It  was  then  nine 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  dead  low  tide.  The 
tracks  showed  that  the  stag  stopped  at  about  six 
o'clock  at  the  edge  of  the  half  ebbed  tide.  Turn- 
ing about  he  forded  a  little  inlet,  dry  at  low  tide, 
but  at  six  o'clock  full  of  water  as  shown  by  the 
absence  of  tracks  in  its  bed,  and  by  the  splash 


44  BEACH  GRASS 

and  drop  marks  on  the  sand  where  he  stepped 
out  on  the  beach.  I  followed  his  tracks,  which 
were  as  clear-cut  as  if  in  clay,  in  the  damp  sand, 
but  merely  shallow  cup-shaped  depressions 
without  form  in  the  hot  dry  sand.  Instead  of 
going  inland  he  had  skirted  the  edge  of  the  dunes 
at  the  beach  for  nearly  a  mile,  only  once  going 
back  a  few  rods  into  the  dunes.  Passing  the 
high  peak  of  Eagle  Dune,  he  turned  abruptly 
down  towards  the  water,  and,  at  about  half  tide, 
his  tracks  disappeared  in  the  wash  of  the  waves. 
I  searched  farther  down  the  beach  for  his  re- 
turn tracks  but,  seeing  none,  I  retraced  my  steps 
and  found  he  must  have  walked  back  about  fifty 
yards  up  the  beach  in  the  water,  and  had  then 
trotted  straight  away  from  the  beach,  over  the 
side  of  Eagle  Dune  and  into  the  bogs  and 
thickets  of  the  interior.  He  had  probably  got 
the  wind  of  some  campers  farther  down  the 
beach. 

Doubtless  many  times  deer  are  passed  unseen 
in  bushy  cranberry  bogs.  These  afford  good 
cover  for  restful  days  after  nights  of  wandering, 
of  play  and  of  feeding.     One  June  day  I  fol- 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  45 

lowed  the  tracks  of  a  moderate-sized  deer  in  the 
dunes.  It  is  a  pleasant  and  harmless  way  to 
hunt  deer  and  good  sport.  Over  sand  hills  and 
through  hollows  they  led  me.  The  deer  had  ajv 
peared  especially  to  enjoy  splashing  through 
pools  of  water.  At  last  I  started  a  doe  from  a 
clump  of  bushes  in  a  cranberry  bog,  she  threw 
up  her  white  tail-flag  and  bounded  off.  Stop- 
ping on  the  side  of  a  dune,  a  picture  of  ex- 
ceeding beauty  in  a  setting  of  glistening  sand, 
she  watched  me  calmlyand  unafraid,  for  she  had 
lowered  her  flag.  Suddenly  her  flag  went  up 
and  away  she  sped.  The  white  tail-flag  is  a  sure 
indication  of  fear.  In  this  case  the  sound  of  my 
approach  may  have  frightened  the  doe.  Later 
she  paused  to  look  at  me,  and,  with  her  imper- 
fect sight,  did  not  recognize  her  arch-enemy 
man.  A  passing  breeze  brought  the  scent  and 
she  at  once  displayed  her  warning.  If  any 
other  deer  saw  it  they  would  have  understood 
and  flashed  the  same  signal.  Further  observa- 
tion and  thought  on  this  subject  had  more  fully 
confirmed  the  views  previously  expressed  that  the 
white   flag   is   a   danger  signal,   and   that    it   al- 


46  BEACH  GRASS 

ways   advertises   and   never  conceals   its  owner. 

On  a  February  day,  with  wind  in  my  favor, 
I  watched  a  couple  of  deer  trotting  together 
through  the  dunes  towards  the  beach.  Looking 
over  the  last  wave  of  sand  towards  the  beach, 
they  were  evidently  alarmed,  perhaps  by  a 
fancied  or  real  scent  from  a  human  being,  to  me 
invisible,  threw  up  their  flags,  turned  inland  but 
changing  their  minds,  trotted  in  my  direction 
just  inside  the  beach.  I  ran  down  to  head  them 
off  but  they  passed  me  within  eighty  yards, 
bounding  prettily  over  the  beach  grass.  One  of 
their  leaps  measured  twelve  feet. 

Such  lovely  pictures  of  wild  life  remain  long 
in  the  memory.  A  few  more  are  worth  mention- 
ing. One  afternoon  in  mid-summer  while  sail- 
ing at  high  tide  down  the  Castleneck  estuary  we 
saw  a  beautiful  doe,  very  red  and  large,  walking 
slowly  along  the  edge  of  the  water  by  the  Ven- 
dome  dune.  Soon  she  turned  inland  and  dis- 
appeared beyond  the  dune.  We  landed  and 
crept  to  the  top  of  the  ridge  and  looked  over. 
There  she  stood,  not  over  seventy  yards  away 
on  the  white  expanse  of  sand  with  her  tail  to- 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  47 

wards  us  and  her  head  turned  to  look  at  us — a 
beautiful  sight.  She  then  trotted  and  bounded 
off  but  her  tail  was  down;  she  was  not  frightened; 
she  did  not  have  our  wind  and  she  had  not  really 
seen  us, — or  did  she  recognize  us  as  friends'? 

I  discovered  another  doe  on  a  September  day, 
wandering  about  the  marsh  near  the  dunes  to 
the  windward  of  me  and  about  three  hundred 
yards  away.  She  occasionally  fed  in  the  grass 
but  kept  looking  up,  once  directly  at  me.  From 
time  to  time  she  shook  her  tail  nervously  but 
never  spread  the  alarm.  Gracefully  jumping  a 
creek  she  startled  a  pheasant  and  watched  it 
flying  away.  At  last  she  disappeared  in  the 
thickets  of  the  dunes. 

On  a  bright  October  day  a  doe  emerged  from  a 
dune  bog  and  stood  within  fifty  yards  of  me  to 
windward.  As  she  slowly  trotted  off,  two  fawns 
followed  her,  walking  most  charmingly  side  by 
side.  I  said  twins,  but  immediately  afterwards 
appeared  a  third  fawn.  Could  they  have  been 
triplets  or  were  they  merely  friends,  the  children 
of  two  or  three  parents'? 

On  a  winter's  day  in  a  sunny  nook  of  a  pine 


48  BEACH  GRASS 

thicket  in  the  dunes  I  was  listening  to  the 
sizzling  of  bacon  in  my  frying-pan.  Suddenly 
I  was  aroused  from  my  pleasant  anticipations  by 
the  sound  of  crashing  among  the  bushes,  and, 
looking  up,  I  saw  the  white  tails  of  two  deer 
vanishing  in  the  gloom  of  the  timber.  Whether 
I  saw  the  forms  of  the  deer  themselves  or  merely 
imagined  I  did,  can  not  be  set  down  here  with 
certitude,  but  I  doubt  very  much  if  I  should 
have  seen  the  deer  at  all,  had  it  not  been  for  their 
conspicuous  alarm  signals. 

On  a  cold  February  day  I  followed  the  tracks 
of  a  deer  that  ascended  the  narrow  ridge  of  a 
dune.  The  other  side  of  the  dune  went  down 
steeply  and  was  covered  with  glare  ice,  except  in 
one  place  where  hard  snow  gave  my  snowshoes 
a  foot-hold.  The  deer,  however,  had  kept  on  his 
course  and  had  descended  over  the  ice.  There 
were  deep  and  long  furrows  in  the  snows  at  the 
foot  of  the  slide,  scratches  on  the  ice  and  an 
abundance  of  rubbed-off  deer's  hairs.  It  was 
plain  he  had  fallen  and  slid  on  his  side.  Deer 
are  not  so  very  wise  after  all,  I  reflected;  they 
are  very  human. 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  49 

Foxes  continue  to  be  common  in  the  Ipswich 
dunes  and  furnish  food  for  thought  in  their 
tracks  and  actions.  Their  clean-cut  footmarks 
with  the  two  long  pointed  toes  extending  out  in 
front  are  generally  characteristic.  In  soft  sand, 
however,  where  the  imprint  is  not  clearly 
marked,  this  feature  is  often  lost  and  the  print 
appears  as  round  as  that  of  an  ordinary  dog.  In 
deep  sand  rarely,  more  often  in  deep  snow,  the  fox 
occasionally  leaves  a  mark  made  by  the  slight 
dragging  of  a  foot.  This  mark  is  not  made  by 
the  tail,  which,  as  far  as  my  observation  goes,  is 
always  held  tidily  above  the  surface  of  the 
ground.  His  beautiful  brush  would  be  sadly 
worn  if  he  allowed  it  to  drag  in  the  sand. 

With  two  of  the  habits  of  the  fox,  not  before 
referred  to  by  me,  I  have  become  familiar  in  the 
last  few  years.  One  of  these  is  their  habit  of  dig- 
ging for  water.  The  water  level  in  the  dunes 
varies.  In  wet  years  all  the  deeper  depression 
ponds,  and  the  water  is  stained  brown  from  vege- 
tation. In  the  depressions  free  from  vegetation 
the  water  is  clear  and  green.  As  the  spring  and 
summer  advances  the  level  of  the  water  sinks,  and 


50  BEACH  GRASS 

successive  terraces  of  small  rushes  or  other  vegeta- 
tion mark  the  receding  shore  line.  In  dry 
seasons  there  is  no  water  to  be  found  in  the  dunes, 
but  one  needs  to  dig  but  a  few  inches  in  these 
hollows,  and  clean,  sweet  water  seeps  into  the 
pit.  The  fox  has  also  learned  this  trick  and  it  is 
not  uncommon  to  find  small  water-holes,  dug  by 
foxes  as  shown  by  their  scratch-marks  and  tracks. 
These  water-holes  are  taken  advantage  of  by 
other  creatures  and  deer  tracks  and  crow  tracks 
are  often  found  near  them. 

Another  habit  of  the  fox  in  the  dunes  is 
digging  for  grubs  and  cutworms  at  the  roots  of 
the  grass.  While  the  skunk  makes  a  shallow, 
roundish  hole,  the  fox  is  likely  to  make  a  deeper, 
narrow  hole.  I  have  seen  a  number  of  these 
holes  together  and  plenty  of  fox  tracks,  showing 
clearly  their  origin.  The  habit  does  not  seem 
to  be  as  common  as  with  the  skunk  that  pits  the 
dunes  for  this  purpose  much  more  extensively. 

All  is  game  to  the  fox  as  my  studies  of  the 
droppings  previously  related  showed.  One  Febru- 
ary day  I  noticed  many  fox  tracks  near  a  curl- 
ing snow  drift,  a  drop  of  blood,  a  tuft  of  rabbit's 


FOX   TRACKS   AND   RIPPLE-MARKS 


FOX  DIGGINGS    lOR   GRUBS 


W4^.h 


DEAD   LOON   WITH  TRACKS  OF   CROW,   SKUNK  AND  FOX 


CATERPILLAR  TRACKS  ON  STEEP  SIDE  OF  DUNE 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  51 

fur  and  part  of  the  entrails  of  that  animal.  A 
fox  caught  in  a  muskrat  runway  had  his  stomac  h 
full  of  muskrat  fur.  On  one  occasion  I  was  fol- 
lowing the  tracks  of  a  white-footed  mouse. 
These  were  joined  by  those  of  a  fox.  There 
were  some  irregular  jumps  on  the  part  of  the 
fox  and  the  mouse  tracks  vanished.  Again  I 
found  the  body  of  a  herring  gull  on  the  beach 
with  head  torn  off  and  much  of  the  flesh  gone. 
It  was  surrounded  by  tracks  of  both  fox  and  crow, 
but  I  venture  to  affirm  that  these  two  were  not 
companions  at  the  feast. 

A  dead  creature  on  the  beach  always  attracts 
the  scavengers.  A  big  loon  thrown  up  at  the  top 
of  the  tide  was  surrounded  by  tracks  in  which 
those  of  crow,  fox  and  skunk  could  easily  be  rec- 
ognized. The  skunk  had  ambled  up  in  the  night 
from  low  water  and  was  making  for  the  dunes 
twenty  feet  to  leeward  of  the  loon;  suddenly  he 
stopped,  "skidding"  a  little,  turned  at  right  angles 
and  trotted  directly  to  the  loon.  The  loon  was  re- 
centy  dead,  a  wounded  bird,  no  doubt,  that  had 
escaped  the  clutches  of  the  gunner.  It  showed 
no  mark  of  tooth  or  claw,  but  had  been  inspected 


52  BEACH  GRASS 

only,  and  left  until  it  was  more  tender  eating. 
The  fox  had  kicked  up  sand  over  it  and  there 
was  the  mark  of  his  foot  in  the  sand  on  the  loon's 
back. 

As  one  follows  fox  tracks  through  the  dunes 
one  can  sometimes  notice  the  strong  foxy  odor 
resembling  closely  that  of  a  skunk.  It  is  not  a 
pleasant  odor,  but,  in  recognizing  it,  one  feels  a 
primitive  sort  of  satisfaction  in  the  keenness  of  his 
perceptions.  On  a  still  cold  day  in  the  woods 
of  Castle  Hill  I  smelt  the  foxy  odor  very  plainly, 
and  noticed  the  fresh  tracks  of  a  fox  in  the  light 
dry  snow.  It  was  a  perfect  day  for  tracking 
and  I  set  out  to  follow.  The  chase  led  me  up 
and  down  hill,  through  woods  and  thickets  and 
open  fields  in  the  course  of  which  I  learned  sev- 
eral things.  The  tracks  were  clear-cut  and  slen- 
der, pointed  in  front  and  showing  the  knob  of  a 
hind  toe  behind.  The  back  feet  were  so  exactly 
placed  in  the  marks  of  the  forefeet  that  the 
prints  appeared  to  be  of  only  one  foot.  There  was 
no  dragging  nor  scuffing.  The  signs  at  stumps  on 
one  side  or  the  other  of  the  trail  showed  that  it 
was  a  male  or  dog  fox  that  I  was  following.     At 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  53 

these  places  the  foxy  odor  was  particularly  strong. 

His  course  was  generally  direct  but  he  had 
turned  aside  to  investigate  every  hole.  He  had 
examined  both  ends  of  a  small  culvert  under- 
neath the  wood-road  and  he  had  paused  to  drink 
at  a  brook.  Arrived  at  a  wire  fence  for  sheep 
he  had,  without  hesitation  and  very  deftly, 
jumped  through  one  of  the  small  square  openings 
between  the  wires.  On  emerging  from  the  en- 
closure he  had  run  up  over  the  hill  to  the  tracks 
of  another  fox.  In  these  he  stepped  so  carefully 
that  the  tracks  appeared  to  be  those  of  only  one 
fox.  After  thirty  yards  of  this  Indian  file,  the 
tracks  separated,  one  going  to  the  left,  the  other 
to  the  right.  I  followed  the  latter,  and  from  in- 
dications that  were  found  later,  it  is  evident  that 
I  had  unwittingly  abandoned  the  chase  of  the 
dog  fox  and  was  on  the  trail  of  a  female  fox  or 
vixen. 

The  lady  soon  turned  aside  and  scratched 
away  the  snow  and  pine  needles  at  the  foot  of  a 
tree,  and,  if  one  were  to  judge  from  the  feathers, 
she  had  discovered  a  crow  and  a  dead  one,  tor 
there   were  no  crow   tracks  near.     Immediately 


54  BEACH  GRASS 

on  leaving  this  find,  the  tracks  showed  a  groove 
at  intervals  on  the  left  side,  as  if  the  booty  had 
dragged  at  times  in  the  snow.  Turning  aside 
from  the  path,  she  had  started  up  the  hill  in  the 
open  field.  A  disturbed  place  in  the  snow,  nu- 
merous and  irregular  marks  of  foxes'  feet  and  a 
multitude  of  crow's  feathers  scattered  about, 
suggested  that  the  fox  had  laid  down  the  crow, 
and  had  partially  or  wholly  devoured  it.  As 
there  seemed  to  be  something  under  the  snow  at 
this  point,  I  dug  down,  and  there  in  a  smooth 
cup-shaped  depression  was — not  the  remains  of 
a  crow  as  I  had  expected — but  the  half  of  a 
freshly  killed  cottontail  rabbit.  The  head  and 
foreshoulders  were  gone,  but  the  skin  was  as 
neatly  rounded  over  the  stump  of  the  body,  and 
the  fur  was  as  smooth  as  if  an  expert  furrier  had 
sewed  up  the  gaping  wound. 

After  carefully  covering  up  the  half  rabbit, 
the  fox  had  trotted  a  few  yards  further,  climbed 
a  boulder  in  the  field  and  sat  down  to  survey  her 
cache.  From  the  rock  she  had  jumped  three  or 
four  feet  to  the  ground,  ambled  across  the  field 
and   entered   the   woods.     There   were   now   no 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  SS 

side  marks  to  distinguish  her  tracks  which  were 
soon  lost  in  the  maze  of  others  among  the  trees. 
That  the  fox  himself  depends  on  his  nose  much 
more  than  on  his  eyes,  I  have  often  demonstrated 
but  never  so  clearly  as  on  a  midwinter  day  when, 
walking  along  the  beach  at  low  tide,  I  made 
out  a  fox  half  a  mile  ahead  of  me,  ambling  about 
on  the  upper  beach.  Once  he  layed  down  in  the 
sand  and  bit  at  his  back  as  a  dog  does  when 
hunting  fleas.  Soon  he  ran  over  the  hard  wet 
beach  to  the  edge  of  the  water,  scanning  every 
bit  of  seaweed  or  driftwood  on  his  way.  The 
wind  was  blowing  from  the  sea  to  the  dunes  so 
that  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  stalk  him 
from  the  dunes.  I  therefore  decided  to  test  his 
eyesight  and  walked  straight  towards  him  along 
the  beach  where  he  would  not  get  my  wind.  I 
was  in  plain  sight,  but,  although  he  apparently 
looked  at  me  as  I  approached,  it  was  not  until  I 
was  within  a  hundred  yards  of  him  that  he  sprang 
forward,  ran  up  the  beach  like  the  wind  and  dis- 
appeared in  the  dunes.  No  tracks  were  to  be 
seen  on  the  hard  surface  of  the  sand  until  his 
initial  spring. 


*  S6  BEACH  GRASS 

It  may  be  said  that  this  fox  really  saw  me 
and  was  playing  with  me  as  foxes  sometimes  do, 
and  thus  allowed  me  to  approach  as  I  did.  I 
hardly  think  this  was  the  case,  for,  until  the 
final  spring  and  straightaway  run,  he  showed  no 
evidence  of  realizing  what  I  was,  and  did  not 
run  along  the  beach  ahead  of  me  as  would 
have  been  the  case  if  he  were  trying  to  decoy  me 
on  in  play. 

The  beach  is  a  good  feeding  ground  for  the 
fox,  but  his  visits  to  this  region  at  low  tide — 
broad  as  it  is  and  lacking  in  any  shelter — are  gen- 
erally made  at  night  and  are  unseen  in  the  dark- 
ness. If  the  tide  is  low  in  the  night  the  tracks 
of  foxes  coming  up  from  the  beach  are  common 
the  next  morning.  At  ten  o'clock  one  November 
morning,  when  the  tide  had  been  low  at  three 
and  was  then  an  hour  in  ebb,  I  came  upon  the 
tracks  of  four  foxes  that  had  trotted  down  from 
the  dunes  and  were  lost  in  the  narrow  strip  of 
beach  swept  clean  by  the  tide.  Three  of  these 
had  trotted  down  together,  the  fourth,  some  fifty 
yards  further  off.  All  four  foxes  returned  to  the 
dunes  two  or  three  hundred  yards  down  the  beach, 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  57 

two  of  them  side  by  side.  It  was  probably  a 
family  party,  and  the  young  were  full  grown, 
as  all  the  tracks  were  about  the  same  size. 

I  once  had  an  opportunity  to  measure  the 
speed  of  a  fox.  As  I  was  motoring  along  the 
road  one  evening  at  Ipswich,  with  searchlights 
burning,  a  splendid  red  fox  bounded  ahead  of 
the  automobile,  his  white  tail-tip  glistening  like 
a  target.  He  was  evidently  confused  by  the 
lights  and  darted  first  to  one  side  and  then  to 
the  other  side  of  the  road,  but  finally,  after  a  run 
of  about  two  hundred  yards,  he  turned  in  to  the 
bushes  on  the  left.  In  following  the  chase  I  had 
speeded  up  to  thirty  miles  an  hour,  but  did  not 
gain  on  him.  I  have  found,  by  measuring  the 
tracks  of  another  bounding  fox,  that  his  feet 
spread  out  in  a  line  to  a  distance  of  three  feet, 
and  that  the  distance  between  the  jumps  was 
five  to  seven  feet. 

On  a  June  day  I  came  across  a  fox's  track  in 
the  dunes  with  a  deep  groove  running  along  close 
beside  it.  I  followed  it  for  two  or  three  hundred 
yards  till  it  entered  a  thicket  of  poplars  not 
more   than   thirty  or   forty  yards   in   circumfer- 


58  BEACH  GRASS 

ence  in  a  deep  hollow.  Before  tracing  the  tracks 
and  groove  into  the  thicket  I  convinced  myself 
that  the  groove  did  not  emerge,  although  there 
were  plenty  of  out-going  fox  tracks.  On  enter- 
ing the  thicket  I  found  a  freshly  killed  night 
heron,  much  mangled.  The  entrails  and  breast 
had  been  eaten.  Holding  the  heron  by  the  body 
and  carrying  it  five  and  six  inches  from  the  sand, 
I  discovered  that  its  heavy  bill  made  a  groove 
exactly  like  the  one  I  had  been  following. 

The  cause  of  the  groove  accompanying  the 
fox  tracks  was  evident,  but  it  seemed  worth 
while  to  discover  all  I  could  about  this  matter. 
Retracing  my  steps  and  the  steps  of  the  fox,  I 
finally  lost  them  in  the  middle  of  the  grove  of 
pitch  pines,  the  seat  of  the  great  night  heronry. 
In  all,  the  heron  had  been  carried  forty-two 
hundred  paces  or  fully  three  quarters  of  a  mile. 
Now  the  heron  showed  by  its  plumage  that  it 
was  an  immature  bird,  hatched  the  year  before. 
It  perhaps  did  not  have  the  cunning  of  the  adults 
nor  their  advantageous  position  in  the  rookery 
and  it  may  have  been  roosting  on  the  ground  and 
was  sprung  upon  and  killed  by  the  fox. 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  59 

Another  very  interesting  fact  developed.  I 
noticed  that  there  were  the  tracks  of  two  foxes, 
one  a  little  larger  than  the  other,  associated  with 
the  groove.  As  the  tracks  came  out  of  the 
heronry  on  to  the  clear  sand,  it  was  the  larger 
fox  that  was  carrying  the  bird,  while  the  smaller 
tracks  ran  first  on  one  side  then  on  the  other. 
After  about  a  hundred  yards  of  this,  the  smaller 
fox  took  up  the  burden  and  carried  it  the  rest  of 
the  way,  although  the  larger  fox  ran  along  beside, 
generally  very  near  but  occasionally  running  a 
little  wide.  If  we  assume  that  the  larger  fox 
was  the  male  or  dog  fox  and  the  smaller  one  the 
female  or  vixen,  then  the  male  must  have  made 
the  killing  and,  in  true  savage  fashion, 
have  given  the  booty  to  his  squaw  to  carry 
home. 

It  was  very  easy  to  follow  the  tracks  with  the 
groove,  for  although  they  went  nearly  directly 
towards  their  goal,  they  avoided  all  bushy  and 
grassy  places,  and  the  groove  was  plainly  visible 
on  the  sand.  It  would  have  been  difficult  to 
carry  the  body  of  a  heron  through  bushes  or  even 
through  grass.     At  one  place  the  body  had  been 


6o  BEACH  GRASS 

dropped  on  the  sand  and  taken  up  again  in  such 
a  way  that  the  groove,  which  had  been  on  the 
right  side,  was  now  on  the  left.  Within  a  hun- 
dred yards  of  the  hollow  in  which  I  found  the 
heron,  there  were  numerous  tracks  of  young  foxes 
some  of  which  had  come  to  meet  the  old  ones, 
and  followed  them  back  to  the  hollow.  At  the 
verge  of  the  hollow  the  heron  had  been  placed 
on  the  sand  before  it  was  taken  into  the  clump 
of  trees. 

The  whole  story  was  as  clear  as  if  I  had  been 
present  at  the  parents'  return  from  the  chase  with 
the  welcome  booty,  although  I  did  not  see  hide  or 
hair  of  this  fox  family.  It  was  probable  that 
their  hole  or  earth  was  near  by,  but  I  failed  to  find 
it.  Two  young  foxes  were  seen  in  the  dunes  a 
few  weeks  later  by  several  of  my  family  who  had 
slept  on  the  top  of  a  dune.  They  awoke  in  the 
early  morning  to  see  these  little  creatures  rolling 
over  in  play  within  a  few  yards  of  them. 
Suddenly  the  foxes  perceived  the  human 
beings,  and,  with  hair  on  end,  they  stamped 
their  little  feet  and  barked  savagely  at  the  in- 
truders. 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  61 

On  one  occasion,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  I  saved 
a  pheasant  from  death  by  a  fox.  I  was  walking  on 
snowshoes  just  below  the  brow  of  Castle  Hill 
when  I  heard  a  sharp  croak — it  was  almost  a 
shriek  and  expressive  of  great  fear — and  a  hen 
pheasant  flew  out  of  a  low,  bushy  thicket  di- 
rectly towards  me.  Immediately  afterwards  a  fox 
ran  out  of  the  other  side  and  disappeared  over 
the  hill.  My  explanation  of  the  episode  is  this : 
the  pheasant  was  feeding  or  dozing  in  the  thicket, 
unmindful  of  a  fox  who  was  creeping  to  spring  at 
her.  The  noise  of  my  snowshoes  aroused  her  and, 
looking  up,  she  caught  sight  of  the  fox  almost 
upon  her.  With  a  shriek  she  made  off  away 
from  the  fox,  disregarding  any  other  danger. 
Thus  it  happened  that  the  pheasant  flew  towards 
me,  and  the  fox,  debarred  of  his  prize,  departed 
in  the  other  direction.  I  imagined  he  looked 
very  disgruntled  and  that  he  had  the  air  of  one 
swearing  inwardly. 

Muskrat  tracks,  easily  distinguished  by  the 
central  groove  made  by  the  tail  and  by  the  webbed 
footprints,  may  occasionally  be  seen  in  the  dry 
sand,  when  the  wanderlust  seizes  these  amphibi- 


62  BEACH  GRASS 

ous  creatures  and  they  travel  from  one  bog  to  an- 
other. I  have  found  their  spectacular  and  deco- 
rative tracks  even  on  the  edge  of  the  sea,  an  un- 
desirable pond  of  muskrats. 

Woodchuck  tracks  are  not  often  seen  in  the 
dunes.  The  animal  prefers  to  dig  his  hole  in 
stiff  glacial  gravel  and  not  in  soft,  shift- 
ing sand.  The  best  tracks  of  his  I  ever  saw  in 
the  dunes  were  in  wet  sand  in  a  dune  hollow — 
each  claw,  each  wrinkle  on  the  sole  of  the  foot 
was  distinct — but  alas  I  I  had  no  photographic 
film  left  with  which  to  secure  it.  In  walking  lei- 
surely the  footprints  of  a  woodchuck  are  near 
together  and  the  toes  are  frequently  dragged. 
When  in  a  hurry  the  animal  jumps  like  a  rabbit, 
although  less  actively,  and  the  tracks  are  in  fours, 
the  larger  hind  feet  side  by  side  in  advance,  the 
ismaller  ones  back  of  these  and  one  foot  diago- 
nally behind  the  other.  Not  only  are  the  front 
feet  smaller  than  the  hind  feet,  but  they  show  the 
marks  of  only  four  toes,  while  the  larger  back 
feet  have  five  toes.  One  of  these  large  tracks 
I  measured  was  two  and  a  half  inches  long  and 
one  and  a  half  inches  broad.     The  distance  be- 


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TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  63 

tween  the  jumps  I  found  in  one  case  to  be  two 
feet,  four  inches. 

Woodchucks  hibernate  in  their  holes  during  the 
winter,  and  are  more  consistent  about  it  than 
skunks  whose  tracks  are  often  to  be  seen  in  the 
snow  on  mild  winter  days.  The  only  time  I  ever 
saw  a  woodchuck  walking  on  snow  was  on  March 
14,  1920.  There  was  still  much  snow  on  the 
ground  and  great  icy  drifts  after  a  hard  winter. 
On  this  day  I  saw  a  large  woodchuck  running 
over  the  snow  near  my  house.  He  hid  in  some 
bushes  but,  on  my  approach,  ran  on  the  snow  to 
the  middle  of  the  garden,  sat  still  a  moment  on 
the  drift  and  then  disappeared  into  it.  A  round 
tunnel  in  the  icy  snow  thirteen  inches  deep  was 
continued  in  his  hole  in  the  frozen  ground.  How 
did  he  know,  sealed  up  as  he  was,  that  it  was 
time  to  bore  through  the  icy  snow  and  come  out? 

The  mild  winter  of  1920,  1921  was  a  favor- 
able one  to  test  the  saying  that  if  the  woodchuck 
or  ground  hog  comes  out  of  his  hole  on  Candlemas 
Day — February  2 — and  sees  his  shadow  he  goes 
back  to  his  hole  to  escape  the  six  weeks  of  cold 
and  storms  to  follow — 


64  BEACH  GRASS 

"//  Candlemas  day  he  dry  and  fair^ 
The  half  o'  winter  s  to  come  and  mair; 
If  Candlemas  day  be  wet  and  foul^ 
The  half  o'  winter's  gane  at  Yule.'' 

Four  days  after  Candlemas,  which  had  been 
mild  and  pleasant,  I  was  at  Ipswich  and  dis- 
covered in  a  smooth  patch  of  sand  on  Wigwam 
Hill  the  tracks  of  a  woodchuck  shown  in  the 
photograph.  He  had  undoubtedly  seen  his 
shadow  for  the  tracks  were  subsequent  to  a 
shower  that  had  occurred  in  the  morning  just  be- 
fore the  sun  shone.  The  haste  of  his  progress — 
rabbit  fashion — suggested  that  he  was  anxious 
to  return  to  his  hole  for  six  weeks  more  sleep. 

The  same  day  the  weather  grew  colder  and  the 
following  day  it  snowed,  and  it  snowed  occasion- 
ally afterwards,  but  on  the  whole,  during  the  next 
six  weeks,  the  weather  was  very  mild  and  there 
were  many  days  when  the  ground  hog  could  ven- 
ture abroad  in  comfort,  if  he  were  not  bound  to 
abide  by  the  prophesy  of  his  shadow  at  the  Can- 
dlemas season.  March  6  was  an  exceptionally 
mild  day,  the  glass  reaching  60°,  and  the  fresh 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  65 

tracks  of  the  ground  hog  were  plainly  to  be  seen. 
Here  then  was  full  proof  that  the  ground  hog 
and  his  shadow  are  not  to  be  relied  on!  Thus 
are  our  cherished  beliefs  overthrown,  our  idols 
shattered  I 

Tracks  of  cottontail  rabbits  are  also  uncommon 
in  the  dunes,  but  they  are  all  too  common  in  the 
snow  in  pastures  and  orchards  of  the  upland. 
They  are  easily  distinguished  from  those  of  other 
animals.  The  rabbit  hops  along  and  lands  on  his 
soft  feet  so  disposed  that  the  powerful  hind 
ones  are  in  front  and  the  smaller  fore  paws 
between  his  thighs  behind.  The  marks  of  the 
hind  feet  are  side  by  side  in  front,  those  of  the 
forefeet  are  in  a  line  one  behind  the  other.  This 
pattern  always  distinguishes  the  tracks  of  a  cot- 
tontail from  those  of  a  grey  squirrel  for  in  the 
latter  case  the  forefeet  like  the  hind  feet  are  in 
pairs  side  by  side.  Besides  this,  in  the  case  of 
the  squirrel,  the  tracks  often  begin  or  end  at  a 
tree  trunk.     Rabbits  do  not  climb  trees. 

Like  the  deer,  the  cottontail  flashes  his  white 
tail  in  fear.  They  are  timid  creatures  and  are 
always  attacked  with  panic  at  the  sight  of  man. 


66  BEACH  GRASS 

When  at  ease  the  tail  is  down,  the  white  patch 
does  not  show.  A  rabbit  on  a  cart  path  two  hun- 
dred yards  away  trotted  about  at  ease,  although 
he  apparently  looked  at  me  at  times,  but  I  doubt 
if  he  saw  me  for  his  tail  was  down.  Later  I  came 
upon  him  suddenly,  the  tail  went  up  and  all  the 
white  hairs  there  and  on  his  stern  seemed  to  stand 
on  end  as  in  the  case  of  the  deer,  and  flashed  out 
a  most  prominent  signal. 

It  was  maintained  by  the  late  Abbott  Thayer 
that  this  white  signal,  instead  of  advertising 
served  to  obliterate  the  rabbit  by  matching  the 
white  sky,  as  seen  by  the  pursuing  animal  with 
his  eyes  close  to  the  ground.  One  April  day,  as  I 
was  lying  on  the  ground  in  an  orchard,  I  heard 
the  yapping  of  some  dogs,  and  a  rabbit  ran  across 
the  field  within  fifty  yards,  prominent  by  reason  of 
his  white  tail.  I  could  not  for  a  moment  imagine 
this  to  be  obliterative,  although  I  had  a  dog's  view 
of  him.  A  minute  later  two  terriers  came  along, 
following  the  trail  by  nose  as  is  their  wont  and 
not  by  eye.  There  have  been  other  occasions 
when  the  tail  of  the  rabbit  has  been  at  the  height 
of  my  eye,  as  on  a  side  hill,  but  never  did  it  ap- 


RABBIT  TRACKS 


GRAY  SQUIRREL  TRACKS 


DEAD    WHITE-FOOTED   MOUSE   AND   TRACKS 


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SEASIDE   GOLDENROD  AND   SKUNK   TRACKS 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  67 

pear  in  the  least  obliterative.  The  cottontail 
often  depends  on  his  concealingly  colored  coat 
to  escape  detection,  and  we  may  pass  him  within 
a  few  feet  and  fail  to  see  his  motionless  body 
among  the  dry  leaves.  The  northern  varying 
hare  has  no  rear  white  signal  and  when  he  lopes 
off,  he  looks,  to  one  used  to  a  cottontail,  like  a 
cowed  animal  with  tail  between  the  legs. 

At  the  lower  end  of  the  sand  dunes  one  may 
find  the  tracks  of  that  world-wide  traveler  and 
pest  of  mankind,  the  Norway  rat.  I  have  no 
doubt  he  voyaged  to  these  shores  on  sand  schoon- 
ers and  left  by  the  convenient  gangway.  His 
tracks  are  in  form  like  a  squirrel  and  his  naked  feet 
make  clean  marks  and  show  well  the  details.  His 
naked  tail  grooves  the  sand  at  times.  His  canny 
nature  was  well  shown  one  night  when  I  had  set 
traps  for  small  native  mice  and  had  laid  paths  of 
cornmeal  along  the  sand.  The  next  morning 
showed  the  tracks  of  rats  all  about,  but  never 
nearer  than  eight  or  ten  inches  from  the  traps. 
A  week  later  I  visited  the  same  locality  and  no  rat 
tracks  were  to  be  found.  They  had  deserted  the 
dangerous  region. 


68  BEACH  GRASS 

The  white-footed  mouse  also  makes  tracks  like 
a  rabbit  and  he  is  apt  to  have  runways  or  paths 
where  many  tracks  are  to  be  seen.  In  going  up  a 
slope,  the  tracks  become  linear,  two  together  in 
each  print,  as  if  the  pretty  little  creature  were 
trotting.  One  midwinter  day  I  noticed  many 
tracks  about  an  old  ship's  timber  in  the  dunes. 
Beneath  it  was  a  nest  of  dry  grass,  the  size  of  two 
fists,  from  which  peeped  a  very  sleepy,  white- 
footed  mouse. 

Tracks  of  the  jumping-mouse  are  similar  but 
smaller,  and  often  show  the  tail,  switched  some- 
times to  one  side  and  sometimes  to  the  other.  I 
measured  the  tracks  of  one  that  had  galloped  at 
speed  across  the  sand  and  made  jumps  at  seven- 
teen or  eighteen  inches,  and  one  at  nineteen 
inches. 

Fortunately  for  the  nesting  birds,  cats  are 
rarely  found  in  the  dunes.  One  is  generally  kept 
at  the  lighthouse,  and  she  has  been  so  obliging  as 
to  make  tracks  in  damp  sand  for  me  to  photo- 
graph. About  the  size  of  a  skunk's  tracks,  they 
are  easily  distinguished  from  those  of  any  other 
animal  to  be  met  with  in  these  regions  by  the  ab- 


CAT    TRACKS 


SKUNK  TRACKS  AND  HOLE  DUG   FOR  GRUIiS 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  69 

sence  of  claw  marks.  The  pads  show  distinctly, 
but  the  feline  race  keeps  the  claws  concealed  in 
sheathes  until  they  are  needed  for  execution. 

After  a  rain,  the  sand  may  be  so  hard  packed 
that  the  tracks  of  lighter  animals  or  birds  do 
not  show  or  show  only  at  intervals,  so  that  their 
interpretation  becomes  difficult.  I  have  seen  the 
characteristic  tracks  of  a  skunk  arranged  in  close 
linear  fashion  as  he  ambled  slowly  along,  or  in 
diagonal  lines  of  fours,  as  he  quickened  his  pace, 
change  to  a  single  foot  mark  every  two  or  three 
feet  where  the  sand  was  so  hard  that  it  only  oc- 
casionally showed  an  impression.  Such  a  sand 
surface  is  well  pitted  by  the  rain,  a  condition 
shown  in  several  photographs. 

On  the  beach  sand,  hard-packed  by  the  waves, 
this  state  of  things  is  not  uncommon  and  a  fox 
may  trot  along  and  leave  no  trace  on  the  hard 
surface  until  he  springs  away  in  haste.  The 
tracks  of  sanderlings  are  often  invisible,  but  their 
recent  presence  is  plainly  shown  by  the  series  of 
curving  lines  of  probings,  which  are  sometimes 
nearly  continuous  furrows.  A  flock  of  plovers 
may  leave  nothing  to  mark  their  presence  on  the 


70  BEACH  GRASS 

hard  beach  but  their  occasional  dabs  or  probings, 
irregularly  scattered  in  the  sand.  Sandpipers 
keep  their  heads  down  and  probe  the  sand  system- 
atically; plovers  run  about  with  their  heads  up 
and  dab  here  and  there.  Yellow-legs  in  the 
marsh  keep  their  heads  up  and  dab  like  plovers. 
In  the  case  of  the  black-bellied  plover,  these  dabs 
often  show  a  partly  opened  bill. 

I  have  found  the  tracks  of  seals  on  Ipswich  bar, 
— great  grooves  and  depressions  and  flipper- 
marks.  The  seal  still  flourishes  here,  and  as  re- 
cently as  December,  1919,  I  counted  on  the  bar 
seventy-flve  of  these  great  animals  taking  their 
siestas.  It  is  always  a  delight  to  watch  these 
wild  creatures,  and  their  presence  and  numbers 
when  pointed  out  to  the  stranger  is  always  the  oc- 
casion for  surprise.  Thoreau  in  his  "Cape  Cod" 
says :  "The  Boston  papers  had  never  told  me  that 
there  were  seals  in  the  harbor.  I  had  always  as- 
sociated these  with  the  Esquimaux  and  other  out- 
landish people.  Yet  from  the  parlor  windows 
all  along  the  coast  you  may  see  families  of  them 
sporting  on  the  flats.  They  were  as  strange  to  me 
as  mermen  would  be." 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  71 

On  June  11,  1922,  twelve  years  to  the  day 
after  my  delightful  but  remote  observation  of  the 
new-born  seal  and  its  mother  on  a  bar  off  Ipswich 
beach,  related  in  "Sand  Dunes  and  Salt  Marshes," 
I  found  a  young  seal  basking  in  the  sun 
twenty  feet  above  the  tide  on  the  beach  itself. 
We  saw  each  other  about  the  same  time,  but,  by 
quick  action  on  my  part,  I  was  able  to  head  him 
off  from  the  water,  and  had,  for  the  first  time,  a 
chance  to  study  this  interesting  animal  in  a  wild 
state  at  close  range. 

He  was  a  beautiful  little  creature,  sleek  and 
velvety,  handsomely  marked  in  black  and  grey, 
and  ''speckled  like  a  macreil"  as  were  the  mer- 
maids of  the  ancient  arctic  explorers.  His  eyes 
were  large  and  lustrous,  and  he  "looked  ear- 
nestly" on  me.  Young  as  he  was,  his  full  upper 
lip  carried  a  more  than  man-sized  moustache  of 
long,  stout  and  curving  bristles.  He  was  thirty 
inches  long  and  may  have  weighed  twenty  pounds. 
He  growled  gently  when  barred  from  the  water, 
but  made  no  attempt  to  bite,  and  allowed  himself 
to  be  stroked. 

When  I  stood  aside  he  made  straight  for  the 


72  BEACH  GRASS 

water,  arching  his  back  as  he  lifted  himself  up  on 
his  front  flippers  which  were  bent  so  that  his  claws 
dug  deep  in  the  sand  as  he  dragged  his  body 
along.  His  hind  flippers  were  as  useless  for  pro- 
gression as  was  his  short  tail.  This  three-in-one 
part  of  his  anatomy  swayed  gently  from  side  to 
side  with  his  efforts  at  walking  on  his  hands. 
The  record  of  a  leisurely  walk  from  the  water 
was  shown  by  little  flipper-marks  in  the  sand 
that  were  only  three  inches  apart,  but  in  his 
hasty  return  his  front  steps,  so  to  speak,  were 
ten  inches  apart.  A  marvelous  change  came 
over  the  method  of  his  departure  when  he 
entered  the  water  of  an  incoming  wave.  The 
awkward  caterpillar  humping  ceased,  and  the 
back  flippers  came  into  action  so  that  the  body 
was  driven  forward  with  great  speed  as  by  a 
screw  propeller,  and  the  seal  at  once  disappeared 
under  the  surface.  Later  his  small  dark  head 
bobbed  up,  but  at  once  plunged  like  an  expert 
swimmer's  under  a  curling  wave  that  was  about 
to  overwhelm  him. 

It  was  a  most  interesting  experience  but  I  have 
two  regrets.     I  pray  for  another  opportunity  to 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  73 

wipe  these  out,  and  I  trust  I  may  not  be  obliged  to 
wait  for  the  passage  of  another  twelve  years. 
The  first  regret  is  that  I  did  not  observe  whether 
the  seal  used  or  did  not  use  his  front  flippers  in 
swimming,  when  his  back  ones  came  into  such 
powerful  play,  and  the  second  regret  is  that,  alas  I 
I  had  left  my  camera  at  home. 

Bird  tracks  in  the  dunes  are  most  abundant  in 
fall  and  winter  when  great  flocks  of  snow  bunt- 
ings and  horned  larks  spread  their  traceries  over 
the  sand.  The  horned  lark  always  walks  or  runs 
and  takes  long  strides,  while  the  snow  bunting 
takes  shorter  steps  and  may  sometimes  hop.  The 
horned  lark  picks  at  the  pointed  stalks  of 
grass  from  the  sand  while  the  snow  bunting  fre- 
quently perches  on  them.  In  both,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Lapland  longspur,  the  mark  made  by  the 
hind  toe  and  claw  is  long  and  well  incised. 

The  tracks  of  a  flock  of  swallows  that  has 
rested  on  a  dune  top  during  the  fall  migrations 
are  puzzling  to  the  uninitiated.  The  birds  do 
not  wander  far,  as  their  short  legs  and  long 
wings  interfere  with  much  pedestrian  exercise. 
In  fact,  their  method  of  locomotion  on  the  ground 


74  BEACH  GRASS 

is  largely  by  flutterings,  a  combined  action  of 
wings  and  feet,  although  they  occasionally  walk 
a  few  inches  without  the  help  of  their  wings. 
The  feet  are  held  well  apart  as  they  shuffle  along. 
As  the  flocks  are  made  up  chiefly  of  tree  swallows, 
the  droppings  on  the  sand  generally  contain  a 
few  bayberry  seeds.  The  swallows  often  take 
sun  baths,  opening  and  shutting  their  wings  in 
the  early  morning  on  the  side  of  the  dune,  just 
as  do  barn  swallows  on  the  sunny  side  of  a 
roof. 

Although  tracks  of  shore  birds  and  gulls  are 
more  common  on  the  beach,  flocks  often  settle  in 
the  dunes  and  spread  their  tracks  over  the  sand. 
One  may  find  in  a  short  compass  the  tracks  of 
ring-necked  plover  and  herring  gull,  of  skunk  and 
fox,  of  crow  and  toad. 

Savannah  sparrow  tracks  are  common  at  all 
seasons  but  winter,  while  those  of  its  cousin,  the 
Ipswich  sparrow  are  most  common  in  spring  and 
fall,  and  rare  in  winter.  One  would  need  to  be 
a  keen  diagnostician  to  distinguish  between  the 
tracks  of  these  two  birds,  but  the  Ipswich  sparrow 
is  slightly  larger  and  is  more  of  a  walker  than  the 


-^:%^ 


4-. 


TRACKS   OF   A   HORNED   LARK  AND   OF  A    LAZY    CROW 


TRACKS   OF    CROW    AND   OF    YOUNG   TOADS 


n^^ 

TRACKS  OF  RING-NECKED  PLOVER,  OF  TOAD,  AND  OF   CROW 
ALIGHTING 


-X 

■% 
«?   - 

r 

"^ 

TRACKS  OF  NIGHT  HERONS 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  75 

Savannah  and,  unlike  that  bird,   it  very  rarely 
hops. 

Crows'  tracks  are  common  at  all  seasons  of  the 
year  and  always  characteristic.  The  * 'gouty" 
toe  joints,  the  lazy  habit  of  dragging  one  or  more 
toes,  the  very  rare  hop,  have  all  been  mentioned 
in  my  previous  publication.  In  alighting,  the 
feet  come  down  together  and  the  hind  toe  and 
even  the  tarsus  may  cut  the  sand.  In  springing 
away,  the  feet  together  sometimes  sink  in  deeply. 
In  both  acts  the  marks  of  the  wing  feathers  are 
often  plainly  imprinted  on  the  sand.  While 
the  adult  crow  rarely  hops,  the  young  do  so  fre- 
quently. Hopping  is  probably  the  primitive 
form  of  locomotion  in  arboreal  birds  that  jump 
or  hop  from  limb  to  limb,  while  the  art  of  walk- 
ing is  acquired  later  if  the  bird  frequents  the 
ground.  I  have  watched  an  adult  crow  and  four 
full  grown  young  on  the  beach.  The  young  fre- 
quently called  for  food  and  whenever  this  was 
found  by  the  parent,  the  young,  although  gen- 
erally walking,  would,  at  these  times,  hurry  to  her 
with  long  hops,  aiding  themselves  by  spreading 
their   wings.     This   spreading  of   the   wings   to 


76  BEACH  GRASS 

glide  when  a  bird  hops  must  have  been  the  prim- 
itive form  of  aviation  in  birds,  just  as  it  was  the 
primitive  form  in  man.  The  early  gliding  ex- 
periments of  Lillienthal  are  historical. 

Near  the  heronry,  the  footprints  of  multitudes 
of  night  herons  are  in  evidence,  and  rarely  one 
comes  across  the  much  larger  prints  of  the  great 
blue  heron.  One  of  these  birds,  a  sportive  indi- 
vidual, took  three  broad  jumps  with  feet  together 
before  taking  flight.  The  tracks  of  this  heron 
are  more  commonly  seen  on  the  beach  or  in  the 
wet  places  in  the  dunes,  but  I  retain  the  picture 
in  my  mind  of  one  of  these  great  birds  standing 
like  a  Japanese  bronze  on  a  dune-top  silhouetted 
against  the  sunset. 

Toad  tracks  are  sometimes  abundant  in  the 
dunes,  but  their  numbers  are  dependent  on  the 
amount  of  water  in  the  bogs  in  the  tadpole  sea- 
son. In  August  and  September  one  may  find 
multitudes  of  their  curious  tracks,  most  of  them 
of  small  individuals.  Their  usual  gait  is  by 
short  jumps  only  two  or  three  inches  long  or  less, 
but  I  have  measured  the  jumps  of  larger  toads 
that  were  evidently  in  a  hurry,  and  had  cleared 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  77 

eighteen  and  even  twenty  inches.  They  steer  a 
surprisingly  straight  course,  often  over  the  high- 
est part  of  a  dune  wave.  Where  they  hide 
themselves  by  day  is  always  a  problem,  as  it  is 
the  rarest  thing  to  discover  them  in  daylight. 
Even  then,  they  are  difficult  to  see,  as  they  as- 
similate their  color  to  the  sand  and  are  very  grey 
and  sandy.  They  may  be  found  under  a  log  or 
piece  of  a  wreck,  or  buried  in  the  sand.  One  may 
find  in  the  morning  a  disturbance  in  the  smooth 
surface  of  the  sand  and  tracks  of  a  toad  leaving  it. 
The  toad  must  have  buried  'himself  in  the  sand 
in  the  early  morning  before,  but  his  tracks  lead- 
ing up  to  his  hiding  place  were  effaced  by  the 
wind  of  the  day.  That  evening  he  made  his 
exit  for  his  night  wandering  and  pursuit  of  in- 
sects, and  his  tracks  of  exit  were  still  plainly  to 
be  seen  in  the  morning,  before  the  sun  had  dried 
the  sand  and  the  wind  had  blotted  out  the  record. 
Insects  weave  a  delicate  tracery  over  the  sand. 
The  seaside  locust  or  grasshopper,  colored  like 
the  sand  so  as  to  be  almost  invisible  when  at  rest, 
whirs  a  long  distance  away  as  one  walks  over 
the  dunes  in  summer.     The  multiple  footprints 


78  BEACH  GRASS 

of  his  six  feet,  the  groove  made  by  his  body  and 
the  deep  marks  in  the  sand  made  by  his  powerful 
hind  feet  as  he  hops  away  are  all  characteristic. 

The  tracks  of  caterpillars  on  the  sand  are  cu- 
rious and  at  times  very  striking  features.  They 
are  seen  to  best  advantage  when  the  surface  of 
the  sand  is  pit-marked  by  rain,  for  the  passage  of 
the  caterpillar's  body  smoothes  or  planes  the 
surface  and  the  track  shows  well  by  contrast. 
A  large  woolly-bear  caterpillar  that  I  encountered 
in  the  dunes  one  August  day  was  making  a 
straight  course  with  considerable  speed  over  the 
dry  but  rain-marked .  sand.  Its  track  was  half 
an  inch  wide  and  perfectly  smooth,  for  his  rough 
hairs  brushed  off  the  irregularities  in  the  sand 
he  traversed.  At  times  a  narrow  central  ridge 
showed,  made  by  the  interval  between  his  pairs 
of  false  legs.  Where  he  struggled  up  an  incline, 
cross  lines  appeared  made  by  the  digging  in  of  his 
vigorous  true  legs  in  front.  When  I  attempted 
to  examine  him  and  put  him  through  his  paces 
on  the  sand,  he  curled  up  in  a  ball  and  played 
possum. 

It  is  evident  that  woolly-bear  caterpillars  de- 


TRACKS  OF   HERRING   GUl.I. 


GRASSHOPPER  AND  ITS  TRACKS  AND  TRACKS  OF   SAVANNAH   SPARROW 


TRACKS  IN  THE  SAND  79 

pend  on  their  clicvaux-dc-frisc  to  protect  thcni 
from  attack,  but  this  does  not  always  avail. 
During  the  fall  migrations  at  Ipswich  I  once 
watched  within  a  few  feet  a  hermit  thrush  pick- 
ing at  a  woolly-bear  caterpillar  on  the  ground. 
I  soon  saw  that  the  thrush's  efforts  were  effec- 
tively directed,  for  the  hairs  were  fast  disappear- 
ing from  the  victim.  At  last  a  black,  naked 
worm,  entirely  devoid  of  the  thick  coat  of  hairs, 
remained.  The  hermit  thrush  then  picked  his 
victim  up  in  his  bill,  swallowed  it,  flew  to  a  low 
branch,  wagged  his  tail  up  and  down  in  his 
characteristic  manner,  chucked  a  few  times  with 
satisfaction,  and  was  off. 

On  the  steep  side  of  a  dune  a  caterpillar  had 
made  repeated  efforts  to  ascend,  but  losing  its 
foothold  in  the  loose  sand  had  rolled  down.  Yet, 
like  Bruce's  spider,  it  tried,  tried,  tried  again. 
The  picture  in  the  sand  suggested  the  outline 
of  a  jagged  mountain  range  or  a  temperature 
chart. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Beach  in  Winter 

''The  wind  blew  east;  we  heard  the  roar 
Of  ocean  on  his  wintry  shored 

— Emerson 

THE  winter  of  the  great  frost,  so  vividly 
described  in  Lorna  Doone  was  a  memo- 
rable one.  The  country  people  in  the 
Doone  Valley,  depressed  by  the  snow  and  cold, 
heard  a  hollow  moaning  sound  which  they  at- 
tributed to  a  witch  "cursing  all  the  country  from 
the  caverns  by  the  sea"  and  believed  that  the 
snow  would  last  until  they  could  catch  and  down 
her.  "But  the  land  being  thoroughly  blocked 
with  snow,  and  the  inshore  parts  of  the  sea  with 
ice  (floating  in  great  fields  along)  Mother  Will- 
drum  (if  she  it  were)  had  the  caverns  all  to  her- 
self, for  there  was  no  getting  at  her." 

Severe  winters  are  sure  to  recur  either  singly 

or  in  a  series  and  they  are  apt  to  shake  the  faith, 

80 


THE  BEACH  IN  WINTER  81 

temporarily  at  least,  of  those  who  say  the  climate 
is  changing  and  is  much  milder  than  when  they 
were  young.  Then,  according  to  these  wise  ones, 
snow  came  regularly  at  Thanksgiving  and  there 
was  sleighing  until  the  end  of  March.  Meteoro- 
logical records  kept  for  many  years  show  that 
mild  winters  and  severe  winters  occurred  a  gen- 
eration ago  as  they  do  today,  and  that  the  snow- 
fall has  varied  irregularly.  The  average  snow- 
fall in  Boston  for  the  winter  is  44  inches,  but  in 
the  winter  of  1873-4  it  was  more  than  twice 
this,  or  96.4  inches,  a  little  over  eight  feet.  Two 
years  later  it  was  5.3  inches,  the  least  on  record. 
The  winters  of  1886-7,  of  1903-4  and  of 
1919—20  were  severe  winters  with  a  snowfall  of 
73  inches  each  year,  while  in  1888-9,  1900-1, 
1908-9  and  1912-13  it  was  only  20  inches  or 
less.  That  the  arrival  of  snow  did  not  average 
earlier  a  generation  or  more  ago  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  the  average  amount  of  snowfall  up  to 
December  in  twenty-one  years  from  1871  to 
1892  was  1.8  inches,  while  in  the  twenty-two  suc- 
ceeding winters  up  to  1913,  it  was  1.9  inches. 
In  the  same  way  if  we  delve  into  more  ancient 


82  BEACH  GRASS 

records  we  find  accounts  of  mild  winters  and 
severe  winters,  but  in  the  long  run,  the  cold  and 
warm,  the  dry  and  wet  balance  each  other,  and 
the  general  average  is  the  same.  Meteorolo- 
gists believe  that  there  has  been  no  mate- 
rial change  in  the  climate  within  historical 
times. 

Yet  it  is  a  common  idea  that  the  climate  of 
New  England  is  growing  milder,  and  when  we 
have  much  cold  and  snow,  the  older  people  speak 
of  it  as  an  ''old-fashioned  winter."  The  human 
mind  is  prone  to  remember  vividly  and  even  to 
magnify  unusual  events  and  seasons,  while  or- 
dinary seasons  of  snowfall  are  forgotten.  Then, 
too,  a  snowdrift  three  feet  high,  struggled 
through  by  a  child,  assumes  gigantic  proportions 
in  the  memory  when  the  child  has  reached  mature 
age  and  size. 

In  our  cities  a  generation  ago,  the  snowfall 
was  not  managed  as  efficiently  as  it  is  now,  when 
powerful  snow  ploughs  and  gangs  of  men  clear 
the  streets  within  a  few  hours  of  the  storm.  In 
former  days  the  snow  was  allowed  to  accumulate 
and  remained  longer  in  the  way  of  traffic.     An- 


THE  BEACH  IN  WINTER  83 

other  cause  for  self-deception  exists  with  those 
who  have  spent  their  earlier  years  in  inland  towns 
or  country  where  the  snowfall  is  greater  and 
comes  earlier  than  it  does  in  coastal  regions.  A 
very  few  miles  often  makes  a  considerable  differ- 
ence. 

The  winters  of  1903-4  of  1917-18  and 
1919-20  were  unusually  severe  and  afforded  many 
interesting  phenomena.  That  of  1917-18,  oc- 
curring during  the  Great  War,  will  long  be  re- 
membered. Captain  Howard,  the  keeper  of  the 
light  in  the  Ipswich  dunes,  was  startled  at  night 
by  loud  boomings  which  shook  the  plates  on  his 
pantry  shelves.  Visions  of  German  raiders  bomb- 
ing the  coast  naturally  came  to  his  mind,  but  it 
was  discovered  later  that  the  disturbance  arose 
from  great  frost  cracks  forming  in  the  sand  of 
the  dunes  and  extending  for  many  yards.  In  this 
way  miniature  earthquakes  are  caused  by  the 
frost. 

The  beach  and  the  sea  are  of  great  interest  in 
severe  winter  weather.  Those  who  know  these 
regions  only  in  the  summer  have  little  idea  of 
the  changes  wrought  by  the  cold.     As  the  tide 


84  BEACH  GRASS 

falls,  the  beach  becomes  coated  with  ice  of 
fantastic  design.  Each  receding  wave  is  marked 
by  an  arc  of  frozen  foam.  In  continued  cold 
weather,  the  coating  on  the  beach  gradually 
builds  up,  augmented  by  the  icy  slush  and  cakes 
left  by  the  ebbing  tide.  All  is  so  solidly  frozen 
to  the  sand  that  it  remains  a  bottom  ice  at  flood 
tide.  A  shelf  of  ice  may  extend  a  little  way 
out  over  the  water  forming,  what  is  called  in 
arctic  regions,  an  ice  foot. 

At  times  great  cakes  of  ice  break  away  from 
their  anchors  and,  buoyed  up  by  the  water,  bring 
up  sand,  pebbles,  and  boulders.  After  the 
severe  winter  of  1917-18  the  beach  at  Ipswich 
to  a  distance  of  two  miles  below  the  pebbly  and 
boulder-strewn  shore  at  the  foot  of  Castle  Hill, 
was  dotted  in  places  with  pebbles  and  boulders. 
These  must  have  been  carried  by  the  ground  ice 
with  the  falling  tide  and  dropped  later  on  the 
sand.  One  unfamiliar  with  this  winter  phenom- 
enon might  be  at  a  loss  to  explain  the  presence 
of  a  boulder  four  feet  long  and  about  three  feet 
thick  that  I  found  on  the  smooth  sand  beach, 
some  two  miles  from  the  nearest  boulder  region 


THE  BEACH  IN  WINTER  85 

at  the  foot  of  Castle  Hill.  Two  other  boulders, 
nearly  as  large,  were  to  be  found  on  the  beach 
in  this  two-mile  stretch.  How  many  disap- 
peared in  deep  water  can  not  be  told.  One  is 
apt  to  think  that  all  boulders  have  been  brought 
to  their  present  position  by  glaciers  or  icebergs 
which  are  of  glacial  origin,  but  it  is  evident  that 
they  must  have  sometimes  been  carried  in  the  past, 
as  these  examples  show  that  they  are  in  the  pres- 
ent, by  ice  not  of  glacial  origin. 

On  the  upper  edge  of  the  beach  is  to  be  found 
in  severe  winters  the  most  interesting  and  strik- 
ing ice  formation,  the  ice-wall.  This  is  formed 
partly  of  small  ice  cakes  and  slush  ice  left  at 
the  top  of  the  tide,  and  partly  of  snow.  It  is 
solidified  by  the  sea-water  thrown  up  by  the 
waves,  which,  in  freezing,  cements  together  the 
component  parts,  and  builds  up  the  wall  higher 
and  higher  as  the  spray  and  ice  is  thrown  on  top. 
At  times  the  soft  slush  ice,  newly  formed  on  the 
surface  of  the  ocean,  is  thrown  on  top  of  the  wall 
and  fills  the  hollows  with  a  snow-white  mantle 
which  contrasts  strongly  with  the  old  ice,  often 
dark  with  sand.     This  mantle,  at  first  as  soft  as 


86  BEACH  GRASS 

snow,  later  becomes  solidified  into  a  hard  frozen 
mass  by  the  percolating  water. 

The  steep  side  of  the  ice-wall  faces  the  sea, 
while  the  land  side  slopes  off  gradually.  In 
storms,  and  at  unusually  high  tides  the  sea 
breaks  over  and  forms  a  second  or  even  a  third 
ice-wall  higher  up  the  beach,  but  the  lower  wall 
is  always  the  sharpest  defined  and  most  spectac- 
ular. Its  height  varies  from  a  foot  or  two  to 
ten  or  twelve  feet,  dependent  on  the  length  and 
severity  of  the  frost.  Against  this  solid  barrier, 
the  waves  break  at  high  tide  as  on  a  rocky  shore, 
and,  as  in  the  latter  case,  they  carve  turrets  and 
columns,  overhanging  shelves,  chasms  and  grottos. 
Many  of  the  grottos  in  the  ice-wall  are  extremely 
beautiful,  the  walls  irregularly  honeycombed  and 
studded  with  crystals  and  knobs  of  ice,  and  the 
roof  hung  with  icicles.  In  places,  pure  white  or 
delicately  green  or  blue,  the  ice  is  apt  to  become 
soiled  with  sand  thrown  up  by  the  waves.  A 
brief  thaw  may  remove  the  icy  coating  which 
holds  the  sand  on  the  beach,  and  the  waves  soon 
change  the  color  of  the  ice-wall  from  white  to 
gray.     The    contrast   between    the    sand    beach. 


INCIPIENT  ICE-WALL  AT  THE  BEACH,  JANUARY,    I922 


THE   ICE- WALL  AT  THE   BEACH,   JANUARY   6,    I918 


ICE-WALL    UNDERCUT 


ICE-WALL   HONEYCOMBED  AND  DARKENED   WITH   SAND 


THE  BEACH  IN  WINTER  87 

smooth  and  as  free  from  snow  and  ice  as  in  mid- 
summer, and  the  ice-wall  at  its  upper  edge  makes 
a  surprising  picture,  but  the  wall  is  most  beauti- 
ful when  the  beach  is  sealed  by  an  icy  coating, 
and  the  waves  build  up  the  wall  undefiled  by 
sand. 

On  one  memorable  day  in  midwinter  I  was  at 
the  beach  alone  and  had  taken  off  my  snowshoes 
in  order  to  climb  down  the  wall  on  to  the  beach. 
I  found  the  snowshoes,  which  are  four  feet  long, 
useful  in  the  photographs  I  was  taking  to  give 
an  idea  of  the  height  of  the  wall.  Without 
some  measure  of  comparison,  a  photograph  of  a 
wall  a  foot  high  may  appear  ten  times  that 
height,  and  in  the  same  way  a  wall  of  ten  feet 
may  appear  in  a  photograph  to  be  onh' 
a  foot  high.  I  have  seen  a  photograph 
taken  of  a  small  cake  of  floe-ice  from 
the  distance  of  a  few  feet  produce  the  im- 
pression on  the  beholder  of  an  iceberg  half  a 
mile  away.  I  was  so  busy  photographing  the 
ice-wall  that  I  had  not  noticed  the  rising  tide 
whose  waves  were  almost  stilled  by  their  coating 
of  slob   ice.     With   each   throb  of   the   sea   the 


88  BEACH  GRASS 

water  was  creeping  nearer  to  me  over  the  icy 
beach,  but  hidden  from  view  under  the  soft  slush 
floating  on  top,  and  I  suddenly  found  my 
moccasined  feet  in  the  freezing  mixture.  The 
ice-wall,  smooth  and  undercut,  was  unclimable 
except  with  ice  axe  and  creepers,  but  a  dash  of  a 
hundred  yards  brought  me  to  a  broken  place  in 
the  wall  where  I  easily  ascended  to  safety. 

At  times  the  upper  edge  of  the  beach  is  covered 
thick  with  flattened  ovoids  and  spheres  of  ice 
from  a  few  inches  to  a  foot  or  two  in  diameter. 
Cobblestone  ice  is  an  appropriate  name  for  this 
formation,  as  it  is  brought  about  by  the  rubbing 
together  of  ice  cakes  thrown  around  and  rolled 
up  and  down  the  beach  by  the  surf.  The  process 
is  the  same  as  in  the  much  slower  formation  of 
cobblestones  out  of  broken  fragments  of  rock. 
On  one  occasion  I  found  part  of  the  sea-wall  built 
up  of  these  round  pebbles  of  ice,  some  small, 
some  large,  all  tightly  cemented  together  with 
frozen  sea-spray.  It  was  a  perfect  conglomer- 
ate or  puddingstone,  similar  in  formation  to  the 
conglomerate  made  of  beach  pebbles  in  former 
ages. 


ICE-WALL,   FEBRUARY  8,   I92O 


ICE-WALL,    FEBRUARY    29,    1 920 


( 


PUDDINGSTONE        ICE-WALL 


THE  BEACH  IN  WINTER  89 

At  the  foot  of  the  gravelly  cliffs  of  Castle 
Hill,  where  it  has  been  cut  away  by  the  sea,  the 
beach  is  strewn  with  boulders.  On  these,  in 
severe  weather,  ice  caps  build  up  still  higher  until 
the  waves  can  reach  no  farther.  The  waves  are 
arrested  at  their  highest  point  and  turned  into 
pinnacles  of  ice. 

The  sea  itself  is  wonderfully  changed  under 
the  influence  of  the  intense  cold.  Long  after 
the  small  fresh  water  ponds  are  fast  bound  up 
with  ice,  the  sea  keeps  open.  The  restless  waves 
prevent  freezing  and  the  larger  body  of  sea  water 
takes  a  long  period  of  frost  to  cool  it  down  to  the 
freezing  point,  which  is  28°  Fahrenheit,  not 
32°  as  is  the  case  with  fresh  water.  In- 
stead of  forming  a  thin  skim  of  ice  as  in  quiet 
regions,  the  surface  of  the  sea,  churned  by  the 
ceaseless  throb  of  the  waves,  becomes  milky  and 
suggests  sago  gruel.  The  surface  ripples  vanish, 
as  if  quieted  by  oil,  and  the  waves  throb  and 
break  with  a  muffled  and  sullen  roar  on  the  icy 
beach.  Their  force  is  spent  under  the  thick 
covering  of  snowy  ice.  If  one  scoops  up  a  hand- 
ful of  this  he  discovers  that  it  is  not  formed  of 


90  BEACH  GRASS 

rounded  grains  as  he  might  imagine  but  of  thin 
flakes  and  crystals  broken  up  into  small  pieces. 
It  is  this  icy  mixture  that  is  left  by  the  receding 
waves  in  snowy  windrows  on  the  beach,  and  that 
serves  to  build  up  the  ice-wall  and  fill  its  hol- 
lows. One  may  unexpectedly  sink  up  to  the 
hips  in  crevasses  in  the  ice-wall  filled  with  the 
snowy  white  mass  before  it  is  congealed  by  the 
cement  of  freezing  water. 

As  the  cold  continues,  the  flakes  freeze  to- 
gether on  the  water  and  form  ice  cakes  of  all  sizes 
from  an  inch  to  several  feet  and  later  many  yards 
in  diameter,  forming  veritable  floes.  The  con- 
stant heave  of  the  sea  prevents,  at  first,  the  for- 
mation of  an  extensive  sheet,  but  these  cakes, 
rubbing  against  one  another,  take  on  a  more  or 
less  circular  outline  with  elevated  edges.  This 
is  the  well-known  pancake  ice  of  Scoresby  and 
other  arctic  explorers, — the  lolly  or  slob  ice  of 
the  Labrador  Coast. 

On  February  3,  1918,  the  ocean,  as  far  as  one 
could  see  from  the  beach,  was  covered  with  pan- 
cake ice  with  here  and  there  a  larger  piece  of  solid 
floe.     On  some  of  these,  seals  were  lying,  adding 


THE  BEACH  IN  WINTER  91 

to  the  arctic  character  of  the  scene.  On  one 
piece  of  the  floe  were  two  seals  and  one  splendid 
great  black-backed  gull.  Lanes  of  steel-blue  water 
intersected  the  snowy  surface,  and  in  these,  red- 
breasted  mergansers  sported,  pushing  the  smaller 
ice  cakes  out  of  their  way  as  they  swam.  As 
I  was  watching  a  flock  of  seventy-five  of  these 
ducks,  with  their  iridescent  green  heads  and 
coral  red  bills,  all  adult  males, — for  nearly  all  the 
the  brown-headed  females  and  young  winter  in 
the  South, — they  laboriously  rose  from  the  water, 
leaving  behind  them  an  oblong  patch  of  dark 
water.  There  was  no  wind  and  the  ground  swell 
was  so  nearly  flattened  by  the  ice  that  but  tiny 
waves  broke  on  the  beach.  In  bits  of  open  water 
close  to  shore  one  could  see  the  ice  coating  of 
the  beach  extending  out,  beautifully  green  as 
seen  through  the  clear  sea  water. 

But  perhaps  the  most  interesting  arctic  phe- 
nomenon of  intensely  cold  weather  at  the  sea- 
shore is  the  mist  that  arises  from  the  sea  water 
— the  frost-rime  of  the  older  arctic  explorers. 
Captain  William  Scoresby  in  his  ''Journal  of  a 
voyage   to   the   Northern   Whale-Fishery"    pub- 


92  BEACH  GRASS 

lished  in  1823  defines  frost-rime  as  "3.  sort  of  fog 
that  appears  on  the  surface  of  the  sea,  in  severe 
frosts,  produced  by  the  condensation  of  the  vapor 
arising  from  the  water  in  consequence  of  its  being 
piuch  warmer  than  the  air."  "The  sea,"  he 
says,  ''on  occasions  of  frost-rime  is  generally 
about  20  degrees  or  30  degrees  warmer  than  the 
air."  He  goes  on  to  say,  'T  was  long  in  doubt 
whether  the  freezing  of  the  sprays  and  froth  of 
the  waves,  or  the  evaporation  of  the  sea,  was  the 
cause  of  the  meteor.  Having,  however,  taken  a 
large  shallow  vessel  of  water  into  the  open  air, 
and  placed  it  in  a  situation  sheltered  from  the 
wind,  at  a  time  when  the  frost-rime  was  particu- 
larly dense,  the  thermometer  being  at  zero,  I  ob- 
served that  this  water,  though  perfectly  still  and 
unruffled,  soon  began  to  discharge  a  thin  vapor, 
resembling  the  frost-rime,  which  it  continued  to 
give  out,  until  the  surface  was  covered  with  ice. 
This  experiment  convinced  me  that  the  cause 
must  be  simply  evaporation." 

The  sea  looks  like  the  scene  of  a  terrible  con- 
flagration. Great  smoke-like  masses  of  dark 
vapor  boil  up,  and  lashed  by  the  icy  wind,  roll  in 


ICE-WALL  AND  PINNACLED   ROCKS 


ICE-WALL    BATTERED    BY    THE    SURF    AT    HIc;H     TIDE 


FROST-RIME   AT   THE    BEACH 


ICE  GROTTO 


THE  BEACH  IN  WINTER  93 

on  to  the  shore.  Here  and  there  spirts  of  white 
vapor,  resembling  puffs  of  steam,  rise  up  from 
the  water  against  the  background  of  dark  clouds, 
spin  around  like  water  spouts  and  rapidly  drift 
down  wind.  As  they  gradually  fade  away,  they 
are  often  renewed  by  fresh  bursts  from  below. 

The  frost-rime  is  densest  in  the  night  and  in 
the  morning  and  evening  hours  when  the  cold  is 
most  intense.  At  midday,  under  the  rays  of  the 
sun,  except  in  below  zero  weather,  the  cloud 
disappears.  At  night,  the  frost-rime  looks  from 
a  distance  like  a  dark  and  sullen  mountain  range, 
but  it  is  snow-capped  and  beautiful  to  behold 
when  the  tops  of  the  range  are  touched  by  the 
rays  of  the  full  moon. 

As  one  watches  from  the  shore  the  cloud  blow 
in  over  the  land,  it  seems  to  dissipate  into  thin 
air,  but  in  reality  it  is  transformed  or  congealed 
into  countless  crystals  that  sparkle  and  glow  on 
every  blade  of  dead  grass,  every  dried  spray  of 
goldenrod,  every  branch  of  brush.  On  the  ice- 
covered  sand  the  crystals  take  advantage  of 
every  knob  and  every  roughness  to  begin  their 
growth.     They  are  few  and  far  between  where 


94  BEACH  GRASS 

the  surface  of  the  ice  is  smooth,  but  they  thickly 
beset  the  rough  ice.  As  they  build  up  they  form 
rosettes,  if  the  air  is  calm,  shuttlecocks  if  there 
be  a  wind.  The  apex  of  the  shuttlecock  points 
down  wind,  the  feathery  crystals  extending  fan- 
shaped  towards  it.  These  rosettes  and  shuttle- 
cocks of  feathery  crystals  of  ice  are  of  great 
beauty  and  scintillate  in  the  bright  sunlight. 
They  are  winter  flowers,  lovely  in  form  and 
coloration.  The  icicles  hanging  from  the  stranded 
ice  cakes  and  from  the  roofs  of  the  grottos  carved 
in  the  sea-wall  are  furred  around  with  these  deli- 
cate snowy  crystals.  The  sea  beach  is  interest- 
ing and  beautiful  at  all  seasons,  and  not  least 
in  winter. 


CHAPTER  IV 

Ice  and  Snow  in  the  Sand  Dunes 

*'Come  and  see  the  north-wind's  masonry^ 

— Emerson 

IT  is  very  unusual  for  the  dunes  to  be  held 
down  by  such  an  unbroken  coating  of  snow 
and  ice,  that  the  blowing  of  the  sand  ceases 
and  dune  growth  and  change  are  stilled. 
This  state  of  affairs  occurred,  however,  in 
the  winter  of  1919-20.  The  earlier  snow- 
storms of  the  winter  were  heavy  and  wet; 
the  snow  fell  quietly,  coating  the  sand 
thickly  and  freezing  into  a  solid  sheet.  Later 
storms  added  to  the  accumulation  and  the  dry 
surface  snow  blew  about  and  formed  drifts  that 
were,  for  the  most  part,  spotless  white  and  free 
from  contamination  with  the  darker  sand  which 
was  held  prisoner  below.  Winter  is  generally 
the  season  of  greatest  movement  in  the  dunes, 

95 


96  BEACH  GRASS 

for  the  winds  are  then  the  strongest  and,  as  a 
rule,  the  snow  and  sand  blow  about  together, 
forming  gray  drifts  of  mingled  sand  and  snow. 
In  the  northern  blasts,  the  conical  dunes  smoke  at 
the  top  like  wigwams,  the  cirque  dunes  are 
rapidly  undercut  and  build  up  to  leeward  and 
the  desert  dunes  deposit  their  load  of  snow  and 
sand  on  the  steep  southern  side.  Often  the  snow 
and  sand  are  segregated  and  form  alternate 
layers,  wavy  lines  and  concentric  circles,  alter- 
nately gray  and  white,  sometimes  in  patterns  of 
considerable  beauty. 

On  the  leeward  side  of  a  dune,  the  southern 
side  in  winter,  where  the  sweep  from  the  north 
is  unobstructed  by  vegetation,  masses  of  snow 
sometimes  accumulate  and  are  buried  in  successive 
layers  of  sand.  One  of  these,  which  I  called 
glacier  dune,  I  described  in  "Sand  Dunes  and 
Salt  Marshes"  and  told  of  finding  snow  there 
throughout  the  month  of  May.  One  may  easily 
recognize  these  caches  of  snow  as  the  spring  comes 
on  by  the  dampness  and  therefore  darkness  of  the 
sand  over  them,  but  especially  by  the  cracks  in 
the  sand.     As  the  snow  m.elts  below,  the  sand 


-^M: 


".K 


DUNES   IN    WINTER 


DUNES  AFTER   ICE-STORM 


SNOWDRIFT   IN   DUNES 


STRATIFIED  DRIFT   OF   SAND  AND  SNOW 


ICE  AND  SNOW  IN  THE  DUNES      97 

is  kept  moist  and  so  compacted  that  in  sinking  to 
take  the  place  of  the  snow,  the  layer  of  sand 
cracks.  In  walking  over  the  dunes  in  cold 
weather  one  may  be  startled  by  suddenly  sinking 
through  an  inch  or  two  of  sand  up  to  one's  waist 
in  clear  snow. 

The  wind  plays  strange  pranks  with  the  sand 
in  winter.  One  formation,  not  uncommon,  is 
that  of  an  icy  slab  supported  on  numerous  short 
columns  of  sand  a  few  inches  to  a  foot  or  more 
high.  These  structures  look  at  times  like  minia- 
ture Grecian  temples.  Again  there  are  columns 
devoid  of  a  roof  and  toadstool-like  structures.  ^ 
The  explanation  of  their  formation  is  probably 
as  follows :  snow  in  melting  has  frozen  into  a  sur- 
face coating  of  ice  and  has  also  percolated  into 
the  sand  in  spots  and  frozen  there.  The  cutting 
wind  has  blown  away  the  loose  sand  not  cemented 
by  the  ice  and  has  rounded  oif  into  small  pillars 
the  harder  combination  of  ice  and  sand.  Oc- 
casionally one  will  find  a  large  mushroom-like 

1  The  similarity  in  formation  of  these  miniature  wind-carved 
columns  and  those  made  by  the  sea  waves  in  horizontal  strata 
of  limestone  is  striking.  Compare  this  illustration  with  the 
one   on   page  60  of   "A  Labrador   Spring." 


98  BEACH  GRASS 

structure  with  a  covering  thatch  of  grass  and 
weed  stalks.  This  pale  yellow  covering  has  not 
attracted  the  sun's  rays  but  has  protected  the 
underlying  ice-infiltrated  sand,  while  the  sun 
has  melted  the  icy  sand  all  about.  The  loose 
sand  is  carried  off  by  the  wind  leaving  a  small 
tableland  or  butte  of  hard  sand  which  is  gen- 
erally undercut  to  the  mushroom  shape. 

It  is  not  always  so  easy  to  discover  an  explana- 
tion for  sand  formations  in  freezing  or  thawing 
weather.  One  of  the  most  curious  is  one  that 
I  have  several  times  found  at  the  end  of  a  severe 
winter  in  shallow  pools  of  water  in  the  dunes, 
where  mounds  a  foot  or  two  across  with  rounded 
and  irregularly  curved  slopes  appear  to  have 
risen  up  above  the  water.  The  cracks  in  some  of 
them  early  in  the  season  point  to  underlying 
snow.  They  look  like  geological  models.  As 
the  water  of  the  pools  sink,  these  mounds  appear 
stranger  still,  surrounded  as  they  are  by  ir- 
regular ridges  and  grooves  of  sand,  that  look 
as  if  a  monster  king-crab  had  been  ploughing  his 
way  through  the  wet  sand. 

Later   in   the  season   some   of  the   pools  are 


FROZEN    SAND   COLUMNS,   "tOADSTOOLS' 


SAND  KETTLE-HOLE 


CRACKS   IN    SAND  OVER  SNOW 


FROST  CRACK  AND  RETREAT  OF  DUNES  BEFORE  THE   SEA 


ICE  AND  SNOW  IN  THE  DUNES       99 

bordered  by  zones  of  small  crater-like  pits  with 
as  ragged  edges  as  the  craters  on  the  moon.  The 
cause  and  method  of  formation,  at  first  obscure, 
was  solved  by  digging  in  the  soft  sand  of  this 
zone.  Then  it  was  found  that  bubbles  of  gas 
from  imprisoned  and  decaying  vegetation  formed, 
on  bursting  at  the  surface  of  the  soft  and  watery 
sand,  these  miniature  craters. 

In  the  spring  one  may  find  in  hollows  in  the 
dunes  circular  depressions  about  a  foot  across 
and  three  or  four  inches  deep,  marked  with  con- 
centric and  radial  cracks  in  the  sand.  These 
are  to  be  found  singly  or  grouped  in  such  numbers 
that  they  also  suggest  the  craters  on  the  moon. 
It  is  probable  they  are  formed  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  glacial  kettle-holes  and  I  have  therefore 
called  them  miniature  glacial  kettles. 

Glacial  kettle-holes  occur  commonly  in  the 
glacial  drift  or  gravel  throughout  New  Eng- 
land as  well  as  in  other  parts  of  the  glacier- 
visited  world.  They  are  pits  a  few  feet  to  a 
hundred  feet  deep,  and  as  many  yards  across 
and  more  or  less  circular  in  form.  Their  sur- 
rounding banks  are  as  steep  as  the  gravel   will 


loo  BEACH  GRASS 

lie,  and  often  grown  up  to  bushes  and  trees. 
Generally  dry  in  summer,  they  contain  small 
ponds  in  the  spring.  A  good  example  is  not  far 
from  my  house  at  Ipswich.  They  are  believed 
to  have  been  formed  at  the  end  of  the  last  glacial 
period  by  the  slow  melting  of  detached  masses 
of  ice  buried  in  the  moraine. 

I  had  always  some  difficulty  in  picturing  in 
my  mind  the  formation  of  these  familiar  features 
in  glacial  landscapes  until  I  came  across  a  descrip- 
tion by  John  Muir  of  a  kettle-hole  in  process  of 
formation  in  Alaska.  "I  found  a  pit,"  he  says, 
"eight  or  ten  feet  deep  with  raw  shifting  sides 
countersunk  abruptly  in  the  rough  moraine  mate- 
rial and  at  the  bottom,  on  sliding  down  by  the 
aid  of  a  lithe  spruce  tree  that  was  being  under- 
mined, I  discovered,  after  digging  down  a  foot 
or  two,  that  the  bottom  was  resting  on  a  block 
of  solid  blue  ice  which  had  been  buried  in  the 
moraine  perhaps  a  century  or  more,  judging  by 
the  age  of  the  tree  that  had  grown  above  it. 
Probably  more  than  another  century  will  be  re- 
quired to  complete  the  formation  of  this  kettle 
by  the  slow  melting  of  the  buried  ice-block.     The 


ICE  AND  SNOW  IN  THE  DUNES     loi 

moraine  material  of  course  was  falling  in  as  the 
ice  melted,  and  the  sides  maintained  an  angle  as 
steep  as  the  material  would  lie." 

The  "miniature  kettles"  in  the  dunes  are  damp 
and  cracked,  indicating  melting  snow  beneath. 
The  truth  of  this  surmise  is  easily  proved  by- 
digging  through  the  two  or  three  inches  of  sand. 
Detached  nodules  of  snow  covered  with  sand  in 
melting  reproduce  on  a  small  scale  the  kettle- 
holes  of  the  glacial  period.  When  the  snow  is 
all  melted  the  sand  dries  up,  the  cracks  disappear, 
the  dry  sand  slips  down  and  blows  into  the  hole 
and  this  interesting  reminder  of  the  great  glacial 
period  is  obliterated. 


CHAPTER  V 
Ice  Formations  in  the  Salt  Marshes 

''or  to  reside 
In    thrilling    region    of    thick-ribbed   ice'' 

— Shakespeare 

THE  salt  marshes,  intersected  by  winding 
creeks  and  cut  by  larger  estuaries,  are 
always  scenes  of  beauty  and  interest  in 
winter.  Usually  there  are  pools  and  veins  of 
blue  water  which  relieve  the  universal  whiteness, 
but,  in  severe  seasons,  all  alike  is  icebound.  As 
far  as  the  eye  can  see,  all  is  glistening  ice.  At 
dead  low  tide,  the  smallest  creeks  are  roofed 
over  at  the  level  of  the  marsh  and  the  tide  rushes 
and  gurgles  back  and  forth  unseen  below. 
Creeks  a  little  larger  are  choked  with  huge  cakes 
of  ice  that  balance  on  their  edges,  fill  their  depths 
or  form  ice  bridges  at  various  parts  of  their 
courses.  In  the  still  larger  creeks,  the  banks  are 
capped,  coated,  pillared  and  buttressed  in  ice, 
while  the  body  of  the  creek  is  covered  with  a 

102 


A  CREEK  IN    WINTER  AT  LOW  TIDE 


VENDOME    DUNE    FROM    THE    FROZEN    ESTUARY 


ICE  FORMATIONS  IN  MARSHES      103 

thick  sheet  that  rests  on  the  flats  at  low  tide  and 
bridges  the  deeper  channel,  and  at  high  tide 
floats  at  the  level  of  the  marsh. 

As  one  walks  at  low  tide  in  the  icy  depths  of 
these  creeks,  careful  to  avoid  stepping  on  a  loose 
cake  that  may  conceal  a  deep  hole  in  the  channel 
below,  one  might  be  in  the  arctic  regions,  miles 
and  ages  removed  from  the  veneer  of  civiliza- 
tion. No  sign  of  human  handwork  is  to  be  seen ; 
no  smoke  curling  from  chimneys;  no  bushes  or 
trees  or  other  evidences  of  the  temperate  zone. 
Each  turn  of  the  creek  opens  up  new  and  strange 
visions  of  icy  grandeur  and  beauty;  overhead, 
the  blue  vault  of  the  sky;  underfoot,  and  all 
about,  ice,  ice — nothing  but  ice.  Like  a  primi- 
tive man,  one  is  dependent  on  wits  and  vigor. 
The  illusion  is  strengthened  if  one  wears  Eskimo 
clothing,  sealskin  boots,  sealskin  mittens  and 
fur  koolatuk.  Dressed  in  these,  one  may  defy 
the  cold  and  sit  in  comfort  on  an  ice  cake  with 
the  thermometer  10°  F.,  below  zero.  My  koola- 
tuk is  of  caribou  fur  and  was  made  by  Labrador 
Eskimos.  It  goes  on  over  the  head  like 
a   jumper    and    is    provided    with    a    hood.     As 


104  BEACH  GRASS 

the  fashion  is  in  Labrador,  the  hood  has  a  point 
behind.  In  Greenland,  the  same  article  of  ap- 
parel is  called  a  koolatah  and  is  rounded  behind, 
lacking  the  point.  Althdugh  it  weighs  but  four 
and  a  half  pounds  it  is  warmer  than  many  a 
modern  fur  coat  weighing  more  than  twice  that 
amount.  The  reason  is  a  simple  one.  Imagine 
two  bags  filled  with  hot  air.  One  of  the  bags 
is  slit  down  the  front  and  buttoned  up,  the  other 
is  intact;  the  hot  air  is  constantly  escaping  from 
the  iirst,  which  represents  the  modem  fur  coat, 
and  is  held  in  the  second,  which  represents  the 
koolatuk.  With  hood  fastened  securely  around 
the  face,  the  thick  fur  is  a  bar  to  the  escape  of  air 
above.  The  hot  air  is  less  likely  to  escape  below, 
but,  in  very  cold  weather,  one  ties  a  rope  around 
the  waist  over  the  koolatuk,  and  the  warmth  of 
the  garment  is  sensibly  increased.  This  trick 
I  learned  from  Donald  G.  McMillan,  the  arctic 
explorer.  Deep-sea  fishermen  in  severe  weather 
tie  a  rope  around  their  jumpers  for  the  same  pur- 
pose and  call  it  their  "soul  and  body  lashing,'' 
as  it  helps  to  keep  soul  and  body  together.  A 
day  taken   from  our  modern  steam-heated  life 


ICE  FORMATIONS  IN  MARSHES      105 

and  spent  in  playing  Eskimo  is  refreshing  to 
soul  and  body  alike  and  helps  to  keep  them  to- 
gether I 

The  ice  floor  of  the  creeks  and  estuaries  is 
pushed  up  by  the  mighty  hydraulic  power  of  the 
tides  for  eight  or  nine  feet  twice  in  twenty-four 
hours,  and  twice  it  sinks  back  again.  Long  cracks 
parallel  with  the  banks,  through  which  at  times 
the  green  sea  water  escapes,  only  to  be  frozen  in 
solid  lakelets,  permits  this  up  and  down  motion. 
In  very  cold  weather,  the  solid  ice  rises  and  falls 
with  surprisingly  little  disturbance.  In  places, 
pressure  ridges  form  and  the  ice  is  sometimes 
forced  up  from  all  sides  into  hummocks.  In 
the  times  of  the  full  moon  when  there  is  an  un- 
usually high  course  of  tides,  especially  if  the  tide 
is  urged  farther  landward  by  an  easterly  gale, 
the  water  breaks  loose  over  the  marshes  and  great 
cakes  of  ice  are  strewn  about  in  wild  confusion. 
Woe  to  the  summer  constructions  of  boat-land- 
ings and  houses !  Everything  must  give  way  be- 
fore the  mighty  hydraulic  pressure.  The  water 
freezing  between  the  cakes  later  cements  the 
whole  into  one  solid  mass. 


io6  BEACH  GRASS 

At  night  when  the  moon  is  full,  the  ice-strewn 
marshes  have   a  strange  and  unearthly  beauty. 
One  may  wander  over  them  as  in  a  dream.     The 
sparkling  ice,  which  almost  obliterates  the  shad- 
ows by  its  brilliant  diffused  light,  makes  an  ex- 
cursion at  that  time  one  long  to  be  remembered. 
Although  everything  seems  as  bright  as  day,  the 
brilliancy  is  deceptive  and  distances  and  objects 
are  difficult  to  judge  and  recognize.     One  may 
suddenly  step  down  several  feet  where  all  seemed 
on  the  same  plane.     The  brilliancy  of  the  scene 
at  the  full  of  the  moon  is  so  great  that  a  photo- 
graph may  be  taken  which  differs  in  no  respect 
from  that  of  a  daylight  photograph.     The  ex- 
posure needed,   although  longer,   is  surprisingly 
short  owing  to  the  brilliant  reflections  from  the 
snow  and  ice.     The  accompanying  plate  is  from 
a  seven  minutes  exposure  taken  at  nine  in  the 
evening. 

The  large  cakes  of  ice,  stranded  on  the  marsh 
assume  at  times  curious  forms.  At  first  of  nearly 
uniform  thickness  and  rectangular  on  their 
broken  sides,  they  become  rounded,  cavernous  or 
arched   and  often   take  on  strange  and  bizarre 


THE    MARSH   IN   WINTER 


HE  MARSH  BY  MOONLIGHT   (scvm  minutc  cxposurc) 


THE   ICE  ANT-EATER 


THE   ICE    BEAR 


ICE  FORMATIONS  IN  MARSHES      107 

shapes.  With  a  little  imagination,  I  have  been 
able  to  distinguish  a  polar  bear  and  a  lamb  ami- 
ably and  incongruously  roaming  the  ice-fields  to- 
gether. These  suggest  the  curious  shapes  and 
cavernous  structure  seen  in  icebergs  due  to  the 
undercutting  and  wash  of  the  waves.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  undercutting  by  high  tides  is  to  some 
extent  responsible  for  the  formations,  but  some 
of  them  have  not  been  reached  by  the  salt-water 
since  the  time  they  were  stranded.  The  melting 
of  the  lower,  more  salty  layers  of  the  ice  cake 
while  the  upper  fresh-water  and  snow-ice  remain, 
are  probable  factors  in  their  formation.  The  thin 
ice  arch  shown  in  the  illustration  suggests  the 
bending  of  the  plastic  ice,  but  this  form  would 
require  lateral  pressure  at  the  two  ends.  It  bend- 
ing took  place  from  gravity,  a  reversed  arch 
would  result,  as  the  supports  are  at  the  two  ends. 
It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  the  arch  form  is 
due,  not  to  bending,  but  to  undercutting  and  melt- 
ing of  the  lower  salty  ice.  The  arch  is  appar- 
ently a  later  stage  of  the  cavern. 

As  the  ice  melts  from  the  marsh  the  large  cakes 
endure  the  longest,  and  of  these  the  ones  that  are 


io8  BEACH  GRASS 

covered  with  thatch  and  marsh  grass  are  slowest 
in  melting.  The  pale  yellow  marsh  grass  shields 
the  ice  from  the  sun's  rays,  while  the  cakes  that 
have  ploughed  up  mud  on  the  surface,  attract  the 
sun's  rays  and  melt  quickly. 

In  the"  severe  winter  of  1919-20  the  salt 
marshes  were  early  covered  thick  with  ice  frozen 
to  the  marsh,  and  the  smaller  creeks  were  all  so 
securely  roofed  that  the  ice  there  remained  at 
the  level  of  the  marsh  even  at  low  tide.  A  warm 
week  in  March,  followed  by  a  southwest  rain, 
served  to  diminish  this  ice  coating  to  a  large  ex- 
tent, and  the  ice  disappeared  from  the  marsh 
without  the  usual  forcible  disruption  of  storm 
tides  and  broken  ice  cakes.  On  March  14  only 
the  larger  creeks  below  Castle  Island  were  open 
and  showed  dark  water, — the  broad  marsh  and 
the  smaller  creeks  were  still  one  universal  white- 
ness. It  was  a  cold  day  with  a  bitter  northwest 
wind.  All  the  surface  water  pools  were  smoothly 
frozen  and  walking  over  the  marsh  was  unim- 
peded by  ice  cakes  but  had  an  element  of  danger. 
The  roofs  of  the  smaller  creeks  were  generally 
intact,  but  had  been  so  thinned  by  the  sun  and 


ICE  FORxMATIONS  IN  MARSHES      109 

rain  above,  and  by  the  gradually  warming  waters 
below,  that  in  places  they  were  of  paper  thinness. 
One  took  chances  in  crossing  them.  Alpine  rop- 
ing would  have  been  desirable.  In  other  places, 
the  icy  roof  was  eaten  away  into  a  delicate  fret- 
work of  lace,  and,  through  the  larger  holes,  one 
could  see  the  swirling  tide  below.  As  a  rule, 
however,  with  a  little  preliminary  testing  and 
good  selection,  the  creeks  could  be  crossed  on  safe 
bridges. 

When  the  marshes  are  free  from  ice,  a  snow- 
storm late  in  the  spring  may  whiten  them  tempo- 
rarily, but  an  unusually  high  tide  transforms 
them  to  a  dark  plane  in  a  white  setting  of  up- 
land. The  marshes  look  particularly  black  at 
these  times.  The  reverse  or  negative  ot  this 
scene  appears  in  cold  weather  when  there  is  no 
snow.  The  marshes  are  white  with  ice,  while 
the  setting  of  hills  and  fields  is  brown  and  bare. 

A  heavy  snowstorm  in  w^inter  renders  a  cross- 
ing of  the  marshes  an  uncertain  performance. 
One  may  meet  some  surprises.  This  happened  to 
me  in  a  February  storm  in  1916.  I  was  taking 
a   short   cut   across   the   marshes   on   snowshoes. 


I 


no  BEACH  GRASS 

and,  on  account  of  the  blinding  gusts  of  fine 
powdered  snow,  did  not  notice  that  the  tide  had 
filled  one  of  the  creeks  in  my  path.  The  coat- 
ing of  slush  ice  and  snow  concealed  the  water 
and,  before  I  was  aware  of  it,  I  was  floundering 
in  the  mixture,  but  by  kicking  off  my  snowshoes, 
I  managed  speedily  to  reach  shore.  Two  other 
surprises  on  this  cross-marsh  walk  were  more 
pleasing.  Twice  I  flushed  from  a  few  inches 
in  front  of  the  tip  of  my  snowshoe  meadowlarks 
that  had  been  hiding  in  well  protected  nooks  in 
the  snow-covered  grass.  Their  bowers  were 
drifted  over  by  the  light  snow,  through  which 
they  burst  like  bombs  in  flight. 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Uplands  in  Winter 

''Around    the    glistening    wonder    bent 
The  blue  walls  of  the  firmament. 
No   cloud   above,   no   earth    below, — 
A  universe  of  sky  and  snowP' 

—  Whittier 
''Hast   thou  entered  into   the   treasures   of  the  snow?'' 

Job,    XXXVll,    22 

WHETHER  careful  statistics  would 
confirm  my  observation  or  not  I  do 
not  know,  but  it  has  often  seemed  to 
me  to  be  a  fact  that  weather  has  a  habit  of  re- 
peating itself  at  intervals  of  a  week.  This  was 
certainly  the  case  in  the  early  months  of  the  year 
1920.  Every  Saturday  for  eight  or  nine  times  in 
succession,  there  was  a  snow-storm,  and  as  that 
was  the  day  I  went  to  Ipswich  for  the  week-end, 
my  friends  offered  me  sympathy.  Inwardly  I  re- 
joiced in  great  measure,  for  not  only  were  my 

III 


112  BEACH  GRASS 

week-ends  made  the  more  interesting,  but  I  al- 
ways secretly  hoped  that  the  storm  would  block 
the  trains  for  my  return  and  thereby  prolong  my 
stay. 

With  snowshoes  I  was  always  able  to  walk 
to  and  from  my  house  and  the  station,  but  trains 
are  more  easily  blocked.  In  the  early  days  of 
the  snow,  I  had  not  prepared  for  this  emergency 
and  had  left  the  shoes  in  the  Ipswich  house. 
Consequently  late  one  Saturday  afternoon  in 
January,  I  found  myself  with  a  friend  at  the 
Ipswich  railroad  station,  separated  by  three  miles 
and  a  half  of  snow-blocked  road  from  our  des- 
tination and  suitable  foot  gear,  a  distance  that 
could  not  be  traversed  by  either  horse  or  motor. 

It  had  snowed  intermittently  for  a  week  and 
two  feet  of  snow  on  a  level  had  fallen.  For  the 
last  twenty-four  hours  it  had  blown  a  gale  from 
the  northeast  and  the  air  was  filled  with  driving 
snow.  The  walk  through  the  village  streets, 
banked  up  with  snow  and  embowered  in  great 
overarching  elms,  their  branches  snow-covered, 
glistening  in  the  street  lights,  was  pleasant  and 
easy.     In  the  lee  of  Heart-break  Hill  the  snow 


THE  UPLANDS  IN  WINTER       1 1  3 

was  falling  softly  and  evenly,  and  was  unbroken 
by  any  recent  track  of  sleigh  or  man.  Beyond 
we  began  to  feel  the  great  sweep  of  the  wind  from 
the  north  across  the  marshes,  and  its  biting  breath 
and  sharp  snow  crystals  made  us  pull  our  caps 
over  our  faces.  At  the  farther  side  of  Burnham\s 
Hill  the  road  became  impassable;  it  was  packed 
with  drifts  from  side  to  side.  I  knew  from  old 
experience  that  this  condition  must  extend  as 
far  as  the  North-Gate  Road,  and  that  the  only 
escape  was  to  take  to  the  fields  to  the  north  on 
the  edge  of  the  salt  marsh.  In  the  darkness  and 
whirling  snow,  we  had  blundered  into  the  drifts 
without  seeing  them,  and  only  by  slowly  and  pain- 
fully walking  on  our  knees  we  were  enabled  to 
escape.  Attempts  to  walk  on  our  feet  resulted 
in  our  sinking  into  the  drift  above  our  waists 
when  progress  was  necessarily  very  slow.  In 
the  fields  all  recent  snow  had  been  instantly 
stripped  off  by  the  winds  which  went  roaring  by 
to  deposit  its  burden  in  the  road  in  the  lee  ot  the 
stone  wall  and  bushes,  and  a  glossy  crust,  not 
strong  enough  to  support  us,  and  breaking  at  each 
step,  here  made  our  progress  slow.     It  was  a  wild 


114  BEACH  GRASS 

night,  but  with  a  companion  on  whom  I  could 
depend  and  with  assured  shelter  at  the  end,  al- 
though there  was  none  on  the  way,  I  had  no  need 
to  worry  about  my  ability  to  accomplish  the  task. 
We  did  not  hurry  and  we  stopped  about  halfway 
in  the  lee  of  some  spruces  to  rest  and  ingest  a 
few  calories  in  the  form  of  sweet  chocolate.  As 
we  neared  the  end  of  our  journey,  the  roar  of 
the  surf  on  the  shore  added  to  the  tumult  made 
by  the  wind.  After  our  two  hours  struggle,  the 
house  looked  inviting  although  it  was  dark  and 
cold.  As  we  entered  the  shed,  a  pheasant,  shel- 
tered in  its  lee,  went  whirring  off  into  the  dark- 
ness and  the  storm.  We  soon  had  a  hot  fire  and 
a  hot  supper  and  bid  defiance  to  the  storm,  which 
shook  the  house  and  roared  about  us  like  a  baffled 
beast. 

The  Indian  chieftain  Rain-in-the-Face  probably 
understood  the  pleasure  and  stimulation  derived 
from  the  pelting  of  rain,  and  the  still  more  pleas- 
ureable  sensation  of  driving  snow  in  the  face : 

''Give  me  to  struggle  with  weather  and  wind 
Give  me  to  stride  through  the  snow; 


THE  UPL.\NDS  IN  WINTER 


1 1 


Give  me  the  feel  of  the  dull  on  my  checks 
And  the  glow  and  the  glory  within F' 

The  Eskimos  would  call  my  hill-to])  on  the  sea- 
shore anoatok — the  wind-loved  spot.  The  sound 
of  the  winds  hurrying  by,  the  tone  constantly 
changing  is  one  of  the  pleasures  of  life,  too  little 
appreciated.  In  fact,  most  people  complain  of  it 
and  say  they  are  wearied  and  all  unstrung  by  it. 
It  may  be  that  this  is  a  habit  of  mind  that  goes 
back  to  the  time  when  our  savage  ancestors,  poorly 
clad  and  housed,  feeling  the  dire  effects  of  the 
wind  and  of  the  struggle  against  it,  endowed  it 
with  fierce  and  diabolical  characteristics.  An  op- 
posite habit  of  mind,  one  of  joy,  of  pleasure  and 
of  appreciation  of  the  varied  sounds  of  the  wind 
is  worth  cultivation. 

''Long  ago  was  I  friends  with  the  wind ;  J  am 
friends  with  it  yet.'' 

My  usual  route  from  the  town  to  my  house  in 
winter  is  by  an  old  road  which  leads  north  of 
Heart-break  Hill  and  crosses  Labor-in-vain  Creek 
near  its  junction  with  the  Ipswich  River.      I  have 


ii6  BEACH  GRASS 

often  pictured  the  early  settlers  coming  back  to 
town  in  their  boats  from  a  day's  fishing,  painfully 
pulling  at  the  clumsy  oars  against  a  head  wind  or 
tide,  and  mistaking  the  wide  outlet  of  this  creek 
for  the  m.ain  river.  In  a  few  rods  more,  the 
rapidly  narrowing  creek  would  show  them  that 
their  labor  had  been  in  vain.  An  English  oak 
with  small  leaves  and  long  peduncled  acorns 
stands  near  here,  a  descendent  perhaps  of  one 
planted  by  the  early  settlers. 

The  rough  and  very  little-travelled  road  be- 
yond the  bridge  through  the  salt  marshes  is  over- 
flowed by  the  tide  at  the  full  of  the  moon,  and 
I  have  occasionally  been  obliged  to  wade  through 
icy  waters.  In  winter  when  all  is  tight  frozen 
my  usual  route  is  across  the  marshes  and  smaller 
creeks  to  the  foot  of  Sagamore  Pond,  the  upper 
end  of  which  is  within  a  third  of  a  mile  of  my 
house.  Towards  night  in  severe  weather,  the  ex- 
pansion of  the  ice  in  freezing,  cracks  it  with  loud, 
booming  explosions  which  travel  over  the  pond 
in  all  directions.  It  is  an  enjoyable  sound,  one 
of  the  interesting  sounds  of  Nature.  Aside  from 
its  associations  with  the  broad  expanse  of  frozen 


THE  UPLANDS  IN  WINTER 


1  1 


ponds  and  with  clear  cold  weather,  its  dee[)  mel- 
low sound  is  pleasing. 

Short  cuts  are  not  always  the  shortest  way, 
for  the  longest  way  round  is  often  the  shortest 
way  home.  I  remember  on  a  dark  rainy  ni^ht  in 
Eebruary,  when  pools  of  water  stood  in  every 
depression  in  the  ice,  I  followed  the  old  road  for 
most  of  the  way,  but  took  a  short  cut  across  a  bit 
of  salt  marsh.  As  I  was  striding  along  with  my 
ruck-sack  on  my  back,  I  struck  just  below  the  knee 
the  single  wire  of  a  fence.  The  upper  part  of 
my  body  kept  on  its  way  until  it  landed  face 
downward  in  an  icy  pool  of  water.  But  the 
worst  is  yet  to  come  I  Before  I  could  recover 
from  my  discomfiture,  my  ruck-sack,  which  had 
also  kept  on  traveling,  but  was  held  within  limits 
by  the  straps,  came  down  hard  on  my  head.  The 
situation  was  so  comical  that  it  saved  the  day. 
In  future,  however,  I  carefully  avoided  that  wire. 

Another  short  cut  was  taken  on  a  January  day 
in  1907,  an  unusually  mild  day  for  midwinter. 
Frequent  torrential  rains  had  scoured  the  country 
clean  of  snow  except  in  the  deep  woods  and  in  the 
shelter  of  stone  walls,   where  a  few  dwindling 


ii8  BEACH  GRASS 

drifts  still  lingered.  I  had  been  prevented  from 
taking  the  only  Sunday  morning  train  for 
Ipswich,  but  I  managed  to  catch  a  later  train  for 
Manchester.  From  there  I  walked  the  twelve 
miles  to  my  farm  at  Ipswich.  The  day  was  per- 
fect. Hardly  a  breath  of  wind  stirred,  and  the 
warmth  of  the  sun  rendered  a  hat  and  coat  un- 
necessary. The  Essex  Woods  road,  so  often  trav- 
ersed in  summer  by  noisy  automobiles  and  chat- 
tering driving  parties,  was  silent  except  for  the 
notes  of  winter  birds  that  greeted  me  from  time 
to  time.  Chickadees,  golden-crowned  kinglets 
and  red-breasted  nuthatches — three  fast  friends 
were  all  there.  While  I  was  watching  these  birds 
close  to  the  ground  at  the  foot  of  some  lofty  hem- 
locks, I  noticed  a  few  scales  of  cones  dropping 
from  above.  Looking  up  I  soon  discovered  the 
cause  of  the  disturbance,  in  the  form  of  white- 
winged  crossbills  who  were  busy  at  their  feast. 
Traversing  the  broad  salt  marshes,  I  arrived  on 
the  shore  of  Birch  Island  opposite  my  house, 
from  which,  however,  a  creek  forty  yards  wide 
separated  me.  The  tide  was  at  the  flood,  and 
was  rushing  in  with  so  much  force  that  the  water 


THE  UPLANDS  IN  WINTER       119 

was  turbid  with  sand  and  its  depth  could  not  be 
seen.  I  had  made  an  erroneous  calculation  as 
to  the  time  of  the  flood.  There  was  no  time  to 
lose.  Hastily  removing  my  clothes,  I  tied  thrm 
up  in  a  bundle  and  holding  them  on  top  of  m>' 
head  I  started  to  ford  the  creek.  I  was  familiar 
with  the  lay  of  the  bottom,  and  hoped  to  be  able 
to  cross  without  difficulty.  It  was  necessary  to 
feel  the  way  carefully  to  avoid  stepping  suddenly 
into  a  deep  hole.  The  water  rapidly  rose  from 
waist  high  to  my  shoulders,  and,  in  one  parti- 
cularly deep  spot,  I  felt  the  tide  laving  my  beard. 
Should  I  turn  back  or  push  on'?  Fortunately  I 
took  the  latter  course  and  soon  came  to  shallower 
water  and  reached  the  further  bank.  I  then  had 
a  run  of  several  hundred  yards  to  find  a  spot  where 
I  could  jump  and  splash  across  a  smaller  creek. 
The  run  in  bare  feet  on  partly  frozen  marsh 
served  to  warm  me  up.  I  hastily  rubbed  myself 
down  with  a  pocket-handkerchief  and  put  on  my 
clothes.  Arrived  at  the  house,  where  I  hoped  to 
surprise  the  family  and  find  a  warm  fire  and  good 
dinner,  I  discovered  that  the  door  was  locked 
and  that  the  family  were  away  dining  somewhere 


120  BEACH  GRASS 

in  the  dunes.  A  cheese  sandwich,  however, 
tasted  good  to  the  last  crumb  and  a  sunny  corner 
on  the  south  side  of  the  house  was  pleasantly 
warm. 

It  is  uncommon  on  this  wind-swept  coast  for  the 
snow  to  fall  gently  on  the  trees  and  bushes,  and 
build  up  fairy  palaces  of  beauty,  or,  if  it  does,  it 
is  soon  blown  away  by  a  rising  wind.  Often, 
however,  in  sheltered  nooks  in  the  lea  of  higher 
ground,  the  trees  and  bushes  are  loaded  with 
snow.  Every  branch,  every  twig  bears  its  bur- 
den, and  the  evergreens  are  glorious  in  their 
white  coating.  If  the  snow  is  light  and  feathery, 
it  does  but  little  damage,  for  an  overload  bends 
down  the  branch  and  the  snow  falls  off  in  a 
powdery  spray.  The  slighest  touch  or  a  puff  of 
wind  causes  a  miniature  snowstorm. 

If,  however,  rain  and  sleet  have  coated  the 
trees  with  ice  great  damage  may  result  from  the 
tightly  fastened  load.  But  one  may  almost  for- 
give the  damage  for  the  surpassing  beauty  of  these 
ice-storms.  I  was  therefore  most  fortunate  in  ar- 
riving in  Ipswich  at  a  week-end  in  February, 
1920,  just  as  one  of  these  storms  was  clearing 


THE  UPLANDS  IN  WINTER       121 

away.  Blown  along  by  a  cold  northwest  wind 
filled  with  icy  particles  I  made  rapid  progress  on 
snowshoes  over  the  hard  crust.  As  I  reached  the 
foot  of  Sagamore  Pond,  the  sun  burst  from  the 
dark  clouds  just  before  setting  and  illumined  all 
the  icy  trees  with  a  flame-colored  glow,  which 
made  everything  glisten  and  sparkle  like  a  scene 
in  fairy  land.  The  drifts  on  Sagamore  Hill  were 
brilliantly  prominent,  each  snow-wave  burning  in 
old  gold,  shading  off  to  a  salmon  hue,  while  the 
sky  above  was  rippled  over  with  marvelous  pink 
and  golden  bars. 

From  my  bed  that  night  I  could  look  over  the 
white  marshes,  dimly  lighted  by  the  stars,  to  the 
ghostly  waves  of  the  sand  dunes,  the  dark  sea 
beyond  and  Cape  Ann  with  its  twinkling  lights 
dominated  by  the  steady  red  gleam  from  the 
lighthouse  at  Annisquam. 

The  next  morning  I  awoke  at  dawn.  All  the 
landscape  was  in  shadow,  all  was  as  blue  as  the 
blue  coverlid  on  my  bed.  I  compared  them  care- 
fully— the  hue  of  the  snow  and  the  coverlid 
exactly  matched.  Hog  Island  loomed  up  a 
round  dark  blue  drumlin  and  the  level  marsh,  all 


122  BEACH  GRASS 

ice  covered,  was  equally  blue — a  deep  indigo 
blue — everything  was  painted  with  it.  As  the 
sun  rose  over  the  rim  of  the  earth,  gleams  of  gold 
and  flame  shot  out  and  at  last  illumined  the  whole 
scene.  Every  weed-stalk,  every  twig,  every 
branch  of  bush  and  tree  sparkled  and  glistened 
in  the  morning  rays. 

I  had  intended  to  do  some  wood-chopping,  but 
the  fascination  of  the  scene  prevented  all  work. 
Its  attraction  was  so  great  that  I  spent  the  entire 
day  wandering  from  place  to  place,  finding 
everywhere  new  scenes  of  beauty.  From  the  top 
of  Sagamore  Hill  the  great  sparkling  ice-fields  of 
marsh  were  spread  below  me.  The  trees  of  the 
wooded  islands  did  not  look  dark  against  the 
ice  as  they  do  when  bare,  nor  white  as  when 
loaded  with  snow,  but  they  were  of  a  delicate 
blue-gray  and  thickly  beset  with  sparkling 
brilliants. 

Everywhere  one  turned,  familiar  trees  and 
bushes  were  transformed  as  if  by  miracle.  Twigs 
no  larger  than  a  lead  pencil  were  covered  with 
clear  ice  until  they  were  three  and  even  four 
inches    in   circumference.     The    long    spikes    of 


BIRCH    BENT   BY    ICE-STORM 


I 

■j 

ttiyi 

iip,.>  jy^ 

PW 

rp^5^ 

^^ 

EDGE  OF  "forest"  AFTER  ICE-STORM 


THE  UPLANDS  IN  WINTER       123 

beach  grass  looked  like  curving  crystal  saws  with 
with  narrow  dark  centers  and  long  icicle  teeth 
below.  The  last  years'  fruiting  stalks  of  the  sea- 
side golden-rod  were  thickly  coated  with  ice. 
Every  hip  and  berry  had  its  natural  color  en- 
hanced through  a  covering  of  transparent  ice, 
just  as  beach  pebbles  are  made  to  glow  by  wet- 
ting or  varnishing.  Glace  fruit  adorned  the 
trees  and  bushes.  Each  little  knob  on  the  pen- 
dant balls  of  the  buttonwood  trees  could  be  seen 
through  the  ice.  The  clusters  of  barberries,  the 
catkins  of  the  birches  and  the  great  red  torches 
of  the  staghorn  sumachs  were  all  encased  in  clear, 
transparent  ice. 

The  ice  was  thickest  on  the  north  and  east 
sides  whence  the  storm  had  come.  Indeed  the 
west  and  south  sides  of  the  tree  trunks  lacked  the 
icy  armor,  but  the  berries  and  fruit  as  well  as  the 
smaller  branches  and  twigs  were  for  the  most 
part  completely  encased.  Careful  scrutiny,  how- 
ever, showed  that  the  sumach  torches  and  even 
some  of  the  smaller  fruits  and  seeds  were  vulner- 
able on  the  southwest  side,  the  lea  side,  so  that 
here  the  birds  might  get  at  their  contents.     Yet 


124  BEACH  GRASS 

the  birds  must  have  suffered  greatly  from  the  gen- 
eral sealing  up  of  their  food. 

Evergreen  trees  were  but  little  changed  in 
color,  for  the  transparent  ice,  unless  it  caught  the 
sun's  rays,  was  almost  invisible  over  the  dark 
green  needles,  yet  the  trees  were  so  changed  in 
shape  as  to  lose  their  proper  outline.  White 
pines  were  so  heavily  loaded  that  their  branches 
slanted  downward,  and  the  trees  resembled  aged 
spruces  in  the  northern  wilds.  The  transfor- 
mation was  remarkable.  A  balsam  fir  tree  near 
my  house,  instead  of  holding  its  branches  diag- 
onally upwards  towards  the  sky,  pointed  them 
down,  and  the  tree  looked  as  if  it  had  been 
trimmed  to  a  pointed  cone. 

Gray  branches  everywhere  bent  over  in  grace- 
ful curves  till  their  tips  touched  the  snow.  In 
open  places  like  the  dunes  they  were  all  pros- 
trate to  the  south,  frozen  where  the  icy  north 
wind  had  left  them.  They  looked  like  Samari- 
tans at  their  devotions  on  the  summit  of  Mount 
Genzim.  Their  innumerable  small  branches  and 
fine  divisions  held  such  a  load  of  silvery  ice  that 
they  could  no  longer  stand  erect  under  it.     In 


THE  UPLANDS  IN  WINTER       125 

sheltered  places,  clumps  of  birch  trees  had  pros- 
trated themselves  radially  from  the  central  point. 
United  they  stood,  divided  they  fell.  Rarely 
was  a  branch  or  twig  broken,  all  had  been  pliant 
and  yielding  to  the  load.  Not  so  in  the  case  of 
the  canoe  birches,  the  white  birch  of  the  north. 
This  tree,  here  at  least,  is  less  yielding,  and 
broken  and  partly  broken  branches  and  stems 
were  common. 

The  tree  that  suffered  most  from  this  ice-storm 
was  the  white  maple.  Its  soft  and  brittle  wood 
was  unable  to  bear  the  heavy  load  of  ice,  and 
the  snow  underneath  was  covered  with  branches 
and  great  limbs  torn  and  splintered  as  if  the  trees 
had  been  through  a  German  barrage.  Poplars 
were  also  sadly  broken  and  scarred  as  were  to  a 
less  degree  the  elms  and  the  lindens.  The  icy 
armor  held  the  branches  in  a  vise  and  they  became 
as  brittle  as  the  ice  under  the  strain.  All  the 
willows  had  become  of  the  weeping  variety.  The 
sturdy  oak  and  apple  and  cherry  hardly  bent  to 
their  burdens,  much  less  broke,  while  native  ever- 
greens as  a  rule  were  unharmed.  Hickories, 
wahiuts,  ashes  and  sumach — all  with  great  com- 


126  BEACH  GRASS 

pound  leaves — have  no  need  for  the  fine  branch- 
lets,  and  sprays  such  as  the  elm  and  birch  need 
for  the  support  of  their  little  leaves.  The  mid- 
rib of  the  compound  leaf  is  itself  the  branchlet, 
and,  as  this  falls  with  the  leaf  at  the  beginning 
of  winter,  only  the  coarse,  stubby  branches  are 
left.  These  trees,  therefore,  carry  comparatively 
little  ice  and  the  damage  among  them  was 
slight. 

The  suggestion  of  Christmas  trees,  hung  about 
with  sparkling  brilliants,  is  considerably  increased 
in  ice-storms  like  this  by  the  presence  of  spots  of 
red  or  blue  or  green  light.  I  have  seen  these 
spots  on  various  occasions  glowing  as  clear  as  the 
lights  of  electric  bulbs.  They  are  due  to  the 
splitting  up  of  the  white  rays  of  light  in  prism 
shaped  icicles.  By  gradually  moving  one's  po- 
sition, the  light  is  made  to  change  from  red  to 
orange,  to  green,  blue  and  violet,  while  the  re- 
verse order  of  the  spectrum  can  be  brought  out 
by  slowly  returning  to  the  first  position.  I  have 
seen  such  an  icicle  hanging  from  the  branch  of  a 
tree,  that  changed  in  color  as  the  branch  swayed 
back  and  forth  in  the  breeze. 


THE  UPLANDS  IN  WINTER       127 

In  a  wind  the  musical  tinkling  of  many  ice- 
covered  branches,  and  the  jingle  of  falling  pieces 
of  ice  is  a  pleasant  sound,  but  one  grieves  at  the 
breaking  of  twigs  and  the  sharp  reports  and  crash- 
ing of  branches  that  snap  without  bending  in 
their  icy  armor.  The  snow  becomes  covered  with 
broken  twigs  and  branches  and  with  splinters  of 
ice  and  molds  of  the  branches  an  inch  or  more 
thick,  all  sparkling  in  the  sunlight.  Progress  by 
walking  through  a  field  of  tall  grass  and  weeds, 
thus  bedecked  with  ice,  is  attended  with  much 
crashing  and  musical  jingling  as  the  ice  is  broken 
from  the  stems  and  flung  on  the  icy  crust.  The 
ice-storm  of  December  1921,  which  did  such 
grievous  injury  to  trees  a  few  miles  inland,  was 
innocuous  at  Ipswich. 

In  the  severe  winter  of  1919-20  the  meadow- 
mice  and  cottontail  rabbits  were  hard  put  to  it 
for  food  and  played  havoc  with  young  trees. 
The  devastation  in  young  orchards  was  particu- 
larly severe  and  many  thousands  of  apple,  pear 
and  other  fruit  trees  were  ruined.  It  is  custom- 
ary to  protect  the  lower  foot  or  two  of  \oung 
orchard  trees  with  wire  netting  or  roofing  paper, 


128  BEACH  GRASS 

as  meadow-mice,  working  under  the  snow,  are 
fond  of  tender  bark.  In  this  winter  when  seven 
feet  of  snow  on  a  level  fell  during  the  season, 
and  when  drifts  sometimes  buried  trees  ten  and 
fifteen  years  old  to  their  tops,  the  work  that  went 
on  under  the  snow  was  extensive  and  not  re- 
vealed until  the  snow  melted.  Then  it  was  dis- 
covered that  many  trees  were  completely  girdled 
by  the  mice  whose  delicate  teeth  markings  could 
be  seen  covering  all  the  wood  from  which  the 
bark  had  been  removed.  Many  of  the  lower 
limbs  were  girdled  in  the  same  manner  and  stood 
out  white  and  bare.  The  limbs  showed  also  the 
larger  tooth  markings  of  the  rabbits,  and  the 
leaf  and  flower  buds  were  removed  by  their  in- 
cisors as  if  they  had  been  cut  with  a  sharp  knife. 
One  ignorant  of  these  matters,  might  be  led  to 
think  that  some  enemy  had,  in  spite,  pruned  off 
all  the  buds  on  the  lower  branches  of  his  fruit- 
trees.  Indeed  when  one  stands  under  an  apple- 
tree  in  spring  and  finds  the  buds  cut  off  as  high  as 
the  arm  can  reach,  a  human  enemy  rather  than  a 
diminutive  cottontail  is  suggested.  When  the 
snow  is  gone  it  is  difficult  to  realize  the  condition 


BUSHES  AND  TREES  IN  ICE-STORM.       A  GLACIAL  KETTLE-TIOLF 


APPLE-TREE   GNAWED  BY    RABBITS   AND    Ml  ADOW-MU  I 


THE  UPLANDS  IN  WINTER       129 

in  midwinter.  I  took  pains  at  that  time  to  walk 
on  snowshoes  over  the  tops  of  some  of  my  h)w 
spreading  apple-trees  of  twenty  years  growth 
that  were  engulfed  in  a  great  drift  in  the  lea  of 
a  bushy  stone  wall,  but  I  found  that  when  I 
stated  this  fact  the  following  summer  I  was  looked 
on  with  incredulity.  There  are  some  observa- 
tions made  with  exactitude  that  it  is  better  not  to 
repeat  if  one  wishes  to  preserve  one's  reputation 
for  veracity!  The  snow  under  these  apple-trees 
was  covered  with  rabbit  droppings,  and,  as  it 
melted,  tunnels  of  tield-mice  crossing  each  other 
and  branching  in  all  directions  were  spread  out 
like  a  map.  Not  only  were  cultivated  fruit- 
trees  girdled  but  many  of  the  native  wild  trees: 
wild  black  cherries,  gray  birch,  sumachs  and  even 
evergreens.  Many  of  these  leaved  out  and 
blossomed  as  usual  the  next  summer  but  the  sum- 
mer after  that  they  were  dead ! 

Another  result  of  the  severe  winters  is  shown 
in  the  creatures  that  have  succumbed  to  cold  and 
starvation.  Dead  crows  and  black  ducks  I  have 
found,  and  twice  I  have  picked  up  the  frozen 
bodies  of  myrtle  warblers.     These  birds  arc  un- 


130  BEACH  GRASS 

doubtedly  able  to  survive  much  cold  if  they  have 
plenty  of  food,  but,  in  a  dearth  of  calories  they  go 
to  the  wall.  I  have  measured  all  the  crows  I  have 
found  dead  and  although  there  are  not  yet  num- 
bers enough  from  which  to  draw  conclusions,  it 
would  seem  as  if  it  were  the  small  and  weakly 
that  fall  first.  Doubtless  many  creep  into  holes 
and  die  and  are  never  found,  or  are  eaten  by 
prowling  animals.  As  the  bird  population  re- 
mains nearly  constant  and  many  young  are  reared 
each  year  it  is  evident  that  a  large  number  must 
perish  annually — but  how  few  of  their  bodies  are 


ever  seen! 


It  has  been  reported  that  in  severely  cold 
weather  birds  are  found  with  their  eyes  frozen. 
I  had  always  supposed  that  this  took  place  only 
when  the  bird  was  much  weakened  from  lack  of 
food  and  was  dying,  or  that  it  occurred  after 
death,  for  northern  birds,  with  their  active  cir- 
culation and  high  temperature,  can  stand  much 
cold  provided  they  have  sufficient  food.  On 
May  31,  1920,  after  the  severe  winter,  Mr.  F.  A. 
Saunders  and  I  were  walking  along  the  inner 
beach  of  the  dunes  when  we  noticed  a  crow  flying 


THE  UPLANDS  IN  WINTER       131 

towards  us.  It  passed  within  thirty  yards  with- 
out swerving  from  its  direct  flight,  and  both  of  us 
noticed  that  the  eye  turned  towards  us  was  white. 
It  is  most  unusual  for  a  crow  to  fly  within  gun- 
shot of  a  man  at  Ipswich,  and  it  is  probable  that 
the  crow  was  blind  in  one  or  both  eyes.  Had  they 
been  touched  by  the  frost  or  was  it  cataract? 

After  a  severe  winter,  drifts  of  snow  on  bare 
hills  remain  longest  on  the  south  side,  some- 
times in  a  series  of  girdling  zones.  One  would 
expect  the  snow  to  melt  quicker  on  the  southern 
exposures,  but,  in  the  northerly  storms  of  winter, 
the  snow  collects  in  drifts  to  great  depths  on  the 
lea  or  southern  side  of  the  hills,  while  it  is  blown 
off  on  the  windward  side.  Although  the  sun  is 
more  powerful  on  the  southern  sides,  it  takes 
longer  to  melt  the  snow  there  on  account  of  the 
far  greater  accumulation. 

Although  the  aurora  borealis  is  not  limited  to 
the  winter  season,  it  is  displayed  to  greatest  per- 
fection at  that  time.  One  of  the  most  beautiful 
auroras  I  have  ever  seen  occurred  one  cold  clear 
night  in  March,  1918,  during  the  Great  War,  and 
the  superstitious  might  well  have  read  omens  m 


132  BEACH  GRASS 

its  display.  A  series  of  white  streamers  radiated 
from  the  zenith,  constantly  waving  and  changing 
their  places.  Whole  sections  of  the  sky  glowed  a 
blood  red,  as  if  it  reflected  a  mighty  conflagra- 
tion or  a  mighty  slaughter,  and  the  snow  was 
tinged  with  the  crimson  flood.  When  this  crim- 
son sky  was  crossed  with  bars  of  white  with  here 
and  there  patches  of  dark  blue,  it  needed  little 
imagination  to  picture  a  draping  of  the  sky  with 
Old  Glory. 

On  another  occasion  the  whole  sky  was  marked 
by  waving,  curving  sheets  of  light,  concentrated 
in  spots  or  radiating  from  the  zenith.  The  col- 
ors were  varied  and  delicate,  suggestive  at  times 
of  the  rainbow,  at  times  of  the  lovely  greens 
and  yellows  of  the  lunar  moth.  These  rays  and 
folds  of  color  moved  about  with  great  speed  and 
resembled  the  waving  of  soft  silken  draperies — a 
skirt  dance  of  the  skies.  The  Cree  Indians  call 
the  aurora  "the  dance  of  the  spirits." 

The  climate  in  this  part  of  the  country  varies 
irregularly  not  only  from  year  to  year,  but  also 
from  day  to  day.  A  sunny,  balmy  day  in  winter, 
may  be  suddenly  interrupted  by  a  blizzard  of 


THE  UPLANDS  IN  WINTER       133 

great  severity,  a  warm  rain  may  change  to  an  icy 
snowstorm,  or  the  coldest  weather  be  succeeded 
by  the  greatest  thaw. 

''First  it  blew  afid  then  it  sneiv^ 
Then  it  friz  and  then  it  tJiew^ 
Then  there  ca?ne  a  shower  of  rain^ 
Then   it  friz   and  thew  again.'' 

Variety  is  the  spice  of  life,  and  these  changes  are 
interesting  and  even  enjoyable — to  one  in  the 
mood. 

The  uplands  are  not  always  white  with  snow 
in  winter.  The  variation  is  a  wide  one.  The 
winter  before  this  one  of  great  snow  was  nearly 
snowless,  and  the  winter  following  was  mild  and 
lacking  in  snowfall.  On  January  26,  1916,  the 
Fahrenheit  thermometer  stood  at  66°  at  2 
p.  M.  and  58°  at  midnight.  On  January  26, 
1913  the  temperature  at  noon  was  58",  there 
was  no  snow  or  ice  to  be  found  and  there 
was  no  frost  in  the  ground.  The  fields  and 
marshes  were  brown  and  bare.  Pheasants  were 
crowing  and  meadowlarks  singing. 

The  persistency  of  winter  and  the  variability 


134  BEACH  GRASS 

in  the  advent  of  spring  in  New  England  is  well 
known.  On  April  17,  1910,  I  gathered  a  small 
mess  of  asparagus  in  my  garden,  the  rhubarb  was 
up  eight  or  ten  inches,  and  violets,  houstonias  and 
wild  strawberries  were  in  blossom.  The  larches 
were  clothed  in  green  and  the  beach  plum  blos- 
soms were  nearly  out.  On  May  7,  1918  the  tem- 
perature was  89°,  all  the  trees  had  leafed  out  and 
the  lilacs  were  in  full  blossom.  On  May  6, 
1917  there  was  a  snowstorm  at  Ipswich  the  glass 
stood  at  39°  at  noon,  and  not  a  leaf  was  to  be 
seen  except  those  of  the  wild  currant.  Not  until 
May  20  did  the  maples  and  lindens  begin  to  leaf 
out. 

Sunday,  March  26,  1922,  was  a  balmy  day; 
the  ground  was  free  from  snow  and  almost  free 
from  frost,  and  the  glass  reached  80°.  The 
Sunday  following,  a  fierce  northeaster  had  cov- 
ered the  ground  nearly  a  foot  deep  with  snow, 
and  the  temperature  had  fallen  to  30°.  Variety 
is  the  spice  of  life.  Therefore  New  England 
weather  is  of  the  best  I 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  Winter  Crow  Roost 

''At  break  of  day  I  crossed  the  wooded  vale: 
And  while  the  morning  made 
A  trembling  light  among  the  tree-tops  pale, 
I  saw  the  sable  birds  on  every  Itmb, 
Clinging  together  closely  in  the  shade. 
And  croaking  placidly  their  surly  hymn.'' 

— Van  Dyke 

PRIOR  to  the  winter  of  1916-17,  most  of 
the  crows  of  the  eastern  parts  of  Essex 
County,  Massachusetts,  spent  the  nights 
in  roosts  in  the  pine  thickets  at  Annisquam  and 
West  Gloucester.  Hither  from  all  directions  in 
winter  afternoons  these  birds  could  be  seen  wend- 
ing their  way.  The  general  course  of  flight  over 
the  Ipswich  dunes  was  from  north  to  south. 
There  were,  however,  several  small  roosts  in  the 
Ipswich  region.  One  was  in  a  grove  of  white 
pines  and  cedars  on  the  south  side  of  Heart-break 

13s 


136  BEACH  GRASS 

Hill;  another,  which  lodged  about  five  hundred 
birds,  was  in  one  of  the  pitch  pine  thickets  of  the 
Ipswich  dunes.  In  November,  1916,  I  discovered 
that  the  ground  under  and  near  the  large  thickets 
of  evergreens  and  hard  woods  on  the  southerly 
side  of  Castle  Hill  close  to  Ipswich  beach  was 
covered  thickly  with  crow  pellets  and  droppings. 
I  was  not  surprised,  therefore,  to  find  that  the 
afternoon  flight  of  crows  was  directed  towards 
these  thickets,  and  that  the  birds  were  passing 
over  the  dunes  in  an  opposite  direction  to  that 
taken  in  former  years.  Whether  the  great  roosts 
at  Annisquam  and  West  Gloucester  have  been 
deserted  or  not  I  cannot  say,  but  it  is  evident  that 
the  larger  number  of  birds  have  transferred  their 
winter  nights'  lodgings  to  Castle  Hill. 

Twenty-five  years  ago  the  whole  southerly 
side  of  Castle  and  High  Hills  was  pasture  and 
mowing  land.  The  owner  at  that  time  began 
planting  trees  on  a  large  scale. ^  At  first  barely 
visible  in  the  grass  these  have  grown  to  a  height 
of  thirty  or  forty  feet,  and  there  is  now  a  re- 
spectable forest  over  twenty  or  thirty  acres  of 

1  This  was    in    1892,    and    the   owner   was   the    late   John    B. 
Brown.     The  estate  is  now  owned  by  Richard  T,   Crane  Jr. 


A  WINTER  CROW  ROOST         i  37 

land.  The  evergreen  trees  are  largely  European 
species — Scotch  and  Austrian  pines  with  spruces 
and  firs.  There  is  a  large  grove  of  European 
larches,  and  there  are  patches  of  willows,  maples, 
ashes,  buttonwoods,  and  other  deciduous  trees. 

In  the  short  winter  afternoons  the  crows  begin 
their  flight  to  the  roost  long  before  sunset.  By 
three  o'clock  or  even  as  early  as  one  o'clock,  es- 
pecially in  dark  weather  and  in  the  short  Decem- 
ber days,  this  bed-time  journey  begins,  while  in 
the  latter  part  of  February  the  flight  is  postponed 
until  half  past  four  or  a  quarter  of  five.  From 
every  direction  but  the  seaward  side  the  crows 
direct  their  course  towards  the  roost.  Three 
main  streams  of  flight  can  be  distinguished :  one 
from  the  north,  from  the  region  of  the  Ipswich 
and  Rowley  "hundreds" — the  great  stretches  of 
salt  marsh  that  extend  to  the  Merrimac  River — 
a  second  from  the  west  and  a  third — apparent!)' 
the  largest  of  all,  broad  and  deep  and  highly  con- 
centrated— from  the  south. 

It  was  the  last  of  these  rivers  that  on  a  coUi 
December  afternoon  with  a  biting  wind  from  tin- 
northwest  I  first  studied   in  compan}'  w'l^h   Mr. 


138  BEACH  GRASS 

Francis  H.  Allen.  It  was  an  impressive  sight. 
About  three  o'clock  the  crows  began  to  appear, 
singly  and  in  small  groups,  beating  their  way  in 
the  teeth  of  the  wind  towards  the  north.  In  fly- 
ing over  the  estuary  of  the  Castle  Neck  River  they 
kept  close  to  the  water  as  if  to  take  advantage 
of  the  lee  behind  the  waves;  over  the  land  they 
clung  to  the  contour  of  the  dunes.  As  we  walked 
among  these  waves  of  sand,  the  crows  often  ap- 
peared suddenly  and  unexpectedly  over  the 
crest  of  a  dune  within  a  few  feet  of  us.  Silently 
for  the  most  part,  except  for  the  silken  rustle 
of  their  wings,  they  flew  over  in  increasing  num- 
bers until  it  was  evident  that  they  were  to  be 
counted,  not  by  hundreds,  but  by  thousands. 
Many  of  them  alighted  on  the  dunes  to  the  south 
of  the  roosting  place;  sand,  bushes  and  stunted 
bare  trees  were  alike  black  with  them.  Others 
assembled  on  the  bare  hillside  to  the  east.  About 
sunset  a  great  tumult  of  corvine  voices  issued 
from  the  multitude — a  loud  cawing  with  oc- 
casional wailing  notes — and  a  black  cloud  rose 
into  the  air  and  settled  in  the  branches  of  the 
bare  trees  to  the  west  of  the  roost.     From  here 


A  WINTER  CROW  ROOST         i  yj 

as  it  was  growing  dusk  they  glided  into  the  evcr- 
greens  for  the  night. 

The  last  day  of  the  year  1916,  I  spent  with 
Dr,  W.  M.  Tyler  in  the  dunes.  The  wind  was 
fresh  from  the  northwest — the  temperature  was 
5°  Fahr.  at  6.30  a.  m.,  18°  at  noon  and  20'^  at 
6  p.  M.  As  early  as  one  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon a  few  crows  were  seen  struggling  north  over 
and  close  to  the  surface  of  the  dunes.  Others 
were  noticed  flying  high  and  towards  the  south. 
This  southerly  flight  came  from  over  Castle  Hill 
to  the  north,  passed  the  roost  and  continued  on 
over  the  dunes.  At  half-past  three  some  of  these 
birds,  which  were  apparently  turning  their  backs 
on  their  usual  night's  lodging  place,  met  with  a 
large  company  coming  from  the  south  and  all 
settled  together  in  the  dunes  about  two  miles 
south  of  the  roost.  Some  of  the  birds  coming 
from  the  north,  however,  settled  on  the  bare  helds 
by  the  roost,  and  their  numbers  here  were  aug- 
mented by  a  stream  from  the  west.  This  con- 
course on  the  hillside  set  up  a  great  tunuilt  ot 
cawings  just  before  four  o'clock.  At  live  min- 
utes after  four,   the  united  multitude  ot   north- 


140  BEACH  GRASS 

erners  and  southerners  rose  from  their  meeting 
place  in  the  dunes  and  flew  low  to  join  their 
noisy  brethren  on  the  hillside.  This  river  of 
black  wings  from  the  south  was  a  continuous  one 
and  it  was  joined  just  before  its  debouch  on  the 
hillside  by  the  stream  from  the  west.  The  river 
from  the  north  had  split  into  two  layers:  the 
lower  flying  birds  came  to  rest  on  the  hill — the 
higher  flying  ones  favored  by  the  strong  north- 
west wind,  continued  on  their  way  south,  not- 
withstanding the  great  current  of  crows  that  was 
sweeping  north  below  them.  They  joined  their 
comrades  in  the  dunes  and  retraced  their  steps. 
No  signs  of  starvation  and  impaired  vigor  in 
these  unnecessary  flights,  or  in  the  games  of  tag 
in  which  two  or  more  of  the  birds  would  at  times 
indulge  I 

The  pace  is  now  fast  and  furious.  The  birds 
are  anxious  to  get  within  touch  of  the  roost  be- 
fore it  is  dark  but  none  have  yet  entered  it. 
At  4.15  p.  M.,  135  birds  pass  in  a  minute  from 
the  south  on  their  way  to  join  the  concourse  on 
the  hillside.  A  little  later  this  southern  river  be- 
comes so  choked  with  birds  that  it  is  impossible 


A  WINTER  CROW  ROOST         141 

to  count  them.  From  our  point  of  vantage  in  a 
spruce  thicket  on  the  hill  we  can  see  that  this 
flock  stretches  for  two  miles  into  the  dunes  and 
it  takes  four  minutes  to  pass.  The  sj^eed  of 
flight,  therefore,  must  be  roughly  about  thirty 
miles  an  hour.  At  4.15  p.  m.  the  sun  sets,  but 
in  the  yellow  glow  of  the  cloudless  sky  the  birds 
can  be  seen  pouring  by  from  the  west  and  south. 
The  bulk  of  the  stream  from  the  north  now  comes 
to  rest  on  the  hillside  for  only  occasionally  can 
a  crow  be  seen  flying  to  the  south  over  the  heads 
of  the  southern  stream. 

At  4.35  P.  M.,  Dr.  Tyler  and  I  again  counted 
the  southern  stream  for  a  minute  as  they  flew 
silently  between  us  and  the  lighthouse.  One  of  us 
counted  160  the  other  157  birds,  so  it  is  probable 
that  our  counts  were  fairly  accurate.  This  con- 
stant watching  of  the  black  stream  from  the 
south  against  the  white  lighthouse  produced  in 
both  of  us  a  curious  optical  illusion.  The  light- 
house and  dunes  seemed  to  be  moving  smoothly 
and  swiftly  from  north  to  south  I 

At  4.37  P.M.,  a  great  cawing  arose  from  the 
hillside  and  a  black  cloud  of  birds  rose  up,  some 


142  BEACH  GRASS 

to  enter  the  roost,  others  to  subside  on  the  hillside. 
It  was  evident  that  the  birds  from  time  to  time 
had  been  diving  into  the  roost.  At  4.40  p.  m. 
it  was  rapidly  growing  dark  and  the  tributary 
streams  were  evidently  dwindling.  Only  50 
went  by  the  lighthouse  in  a  minute.  Five  min- 
utes later  it  was  nearly  dark  and  only  a  few  be- 
lated stragglers  were  hurrying  to  the  concourse 
on  the  hill. 

At  4.45  p.  M.,  Dr.  Tyler  and  I  walked  around 
to  the  north  of  the  roost,  and,  although  we  could 
see  nothing  in  the  darkness,  we  could  hear  the 
silken  rustle  of  wings  and  feathers  as  the  crows 
were  composing  themselves  for  the  night's  rest 
among  the  branches  of  the  trees.  The  babble 
of  low  conversational  notes  that  went  up  from 
the  company  suggested  the  sounds  of  a  night 
heronry,  although  c awing s  and  earrings  were  in- 
terspersed with  the  kis  and  uks  and  ahhs.  The 
odor  was  that  of  a  hen-yard.  The  temperature 
in  the  grove,  with  its  hundreds  of  corvine  fur- 
naces breathing  out  air  heated  to  105°  or  there- 
abouts was  probably  distinctly  higher  than  in 
the    open.     We    refrained    from    entering    the 


A  WINTER  CROW  ROOST         143 

thicket,  for  any  attempt  to  do  so  aroused  the  hirds 
to  flight. 

In  the  dim  light  we  could  make  out  that  the 
hillside  held  between  the  roost  and  the  sea  was 
still  blackened  with  birds  that  were  continually 
rising  up  and  entering  the  trees.  Some  of  them 
perched  temporarily  on  the  bare  tops  of  the  hard 
woods  where  they  were  visible  against  the  sky. 
The  noise  and  confusion  were  great.  It  would 
seem  as  if  the  roost  was  so  crowded  that  the 
birds  had  to  wait  their  time  for  a  chance  to  get 
in,  and  that  a  constant  shifting  of  places  and 
crowding  was  necessary  before  the  crows  could 
settle  in  peace  for  the  night.  Hence  the  pro- 
longed and  varied  conversation;  hence  the  pro- 
fanity. 

It  was  an  intensely  interesting  experience,  this 
observation  of  the  return  of  the  crows  to  their 
night's  lodgings,  and  one  wished  for  eyes  all 
about  the  head,  well  sharpened  wits  to  interpret 
and  a  trained  assistant  to  take  down  notes.  How 
many  birds  spent  the  night  in  the  roost '^  T\vM 
is  a  difficult  question  to  answer,  but  a  rough  esti- 
mate can  be  made.     There  were  three  streams  en- 


144  BEACH  GRASS 

tering  the  roost  beginning  at  one  o'clock  and  con- 
tinuing until  a  quarter  of  five.  The  largest  of 
these  was  from  the  south,  the  next  largest  from 
the  west  and  the  smallest  from  the  north.  The 
greatest  flight  occurred  in  the  hour  before  dark. 
From  counts  made  in  the  stream  from  the  south 
this  flow  averaged  at  least  a  hundred  in  a  min- 
ute or  6000  in  the  hour.  If  we  suppose  that  an 
equal  number  arrived  in  the  combined  western 
and  northern  streams  there  would  be  12,000  oc- 
cupants in  the  roost,  a  very  moderate  estimate, 
I  believe. 

Crows  were  not  the  only  species  that  sought 
refuge  for  the  night  in  these  evergreens.  At 
half-past  four  a  starling  was  seen  flying  thither. 
But  the  great  flight  of  starlings  appeared  shortly 
after  four.  There  were  about  two  hundred  of 
them — a  mere  nothing  compared  with  the  enor- 
mous multitudes  that  are  soon  destined  to  in- 
habit these  regions,  for  the  European  starling, 
introduced  in  some  evil  moment  to  these  new 
lands  of  the  Western  Hemisphere,  is  increasing 
by  leaps  and  bounds.  This  flock  of  two  hun- 
dred starlings  flew  by  with  a  whistling  of  wings 


A  WINTER  CROW  ROOST  14^- 

straight  for  the  roost,  but,  on  its  arrival,  at  once 
began  a  series  of  aerial  evolutions  which  lasted  for 
half  an  hour  by  the  watch,  before  the  flock  finally 
entered  the  roost  for  the  night.  At  times  the 
birds  would  spread  out  like  a  mist  on  the  hill- 
sides, at  times  they  would  combine  to  form  a 
compact  dark  ball;  again  they  would  stream  off 
like  a  whisp  of  smoke,  and  turn  and  twist  and 
snap  the  whip  in  a  most  amazing  manner.  The 
ex'hibition  of  this  troop  of  starlings  was  that  of 
well  trained  performers  executing  difficult  and 
intricate  evolutions  without  hesitation  and  with- 
out fault.  The  rhythm  and  harmony  of  all 
their  movements  was  perfect;  the  speed  of  action 
was  so  great  that  it  was  at  times  difficult  to  fol- 
low them  with  the  eye.  They  opened  or  closed 
ranks,  they  deployed  to  the  right  or  to  the  left, 
they  descended  or  ascended  as  if  impelled  by  a 
common  mind  or  as  if  possessed  of  perfect  tele- 
pathic intercommunication.  One  could  hear  no 
word  of  command  and  there  appeared  to  be 
no  leader.  The  spirit  of  play  was  in  it  all 
and  the  joy  of  untiring  energy,  of  perfect  mas- 
tery of  the  air  and  of  consummate  grace  and  skill. 


146  BEACH  GRASS 

It  was  a  marvelous  and  mysterious  exhibition. 
I  have  often  watched  from  my  house  the 
western  stream  of  crows  go  by,  bound  for  the 
roost.  With  a  strong  northwest  wind  the  greater 
number  fly  in  the  lea  of  the  hill  close  to  the 
marsh.  A  smaller  number  push  their  way  in  the 
valley  to  the  north  partly  sheltered  from  the 
wind  by  the  trees.  It  exposes  himself  to  the  full 
sweep  of  the  wind  over  the  top  of  the  hill. 
When  the  wind  is  in  the  east  the  crows  fly  close 
to  the  marsh  and  follow  the  windings  of  Castle 
Creek.  With  a  westerly  breeze,  however,  the 
birds  fly  high  and,  silhouetted  against  the  sunset 
glow,  the  birds  pass  over  the  hill  at  great  speed, 
alternately  flapping  and  sailing.  Those  that  fly 
over  the  marshes  keep  at  the  level  of  the  top  of 
the  hill  instead  of  skimming  close  to  the  ground 
as  they  do  in  unfavorable  winds.  I  have  counted 
eighty  and  at  times  as  many  as  one  hundred  and 
twenty  passing  in  a  minute  in  this  western 
tributary  to  the  roost.  Sometimes  they  tarry  at 
Birch  Island  and  blacken  the  bare  trees  with 
their  numbers,  and  fill  the  air  with  the  din  of 
their  afternoon  conversation.     Of  a  sudden  they 


A  WINTER  CROW  ROOST  147 

are    off    for    their    ni^ht    roost    on    Castle    Hill. 

In  the  early  months  of  the  year  1919  the  roost 
was  much  disturbed  by  a  great  horned  owl,  and 
temporarily  ceased  to  be,  the  crows  goin^  else- 
where. The  feathers  of  dead  crows  and  great 
outcrys  among  the  living  attested  the  crime. 
Early  in  April,  however,  the  crows  returned  as 
usual  to  the  roost;  the  owl  had  evidently  taken 
his  departure  for  his  breeding  grounds. 

The  afternoon  of  the  twenty-second  of  Febru- 
ary, 1917,  was  cold  and  clear  with  a  wind  from 
the  northwest.  I  made  my  way  to  the  top  of 
Castle  Hill  in  order  to  watch  the  stream  of  crows 
from  the  north.  The  first  arrivals  came  at  half- 
past  four  o'clock.  They  were  flying  over  the  ice- 
filled  marshes  of  the  Ipswich  and  Plum  Island 
rivers,  on  the  lookout  perhaps  for  a  last  scanty 
portion  of  food  before  bedtime.  On  reaching 
Castle  Hill  they  flew  up  over  its  crest  and  glided 
down  into  the  hard  woods  to  the  east  and  west 
of  the  evergreen  roost.  Here  they  took  part  in 
the  regular  noisy  evening  crow  reception  of  the 
three  streams  before  retiring  for  the  night. 

At  the  full  of  the  moon  on  the  sixth  of  Janu- 


148  BEACH  GRASS 

ary  I  visited  the  roost  at  9  p.  m.,  a  time  when 
all  well  regulated  crows  should,  I  had  supposed, 
be  sound  asleep.  As  I  approached  the  roost, 
much  to  my  surprise,  I  heard  distant  sleepy  cries 
like  those  of  young  herons,  and  when  I  reached 
the  edge  of  the  roosting  trees  there  was  a  tumul- 
tuous rush  and  bustle  of  crows  flying  from  tree 
to  tree  and  overhead.  Strain  my  eyes  as  I  would 
only  occasionally  could  I  catch  sight  of  a  black 
form,  although  the  air  was  brilliant  with  the 
moonlight  and  the  reflection  from  the  snow.  I 
turned  back  at  once  as  I  had  no  desire  to  disturb 
the  birds'  slumbers  but  it  was  evident  that  many, 
even  at  this  later  hour,  had  not  settled  down  for 
the  night. 

The  morning  flight  from  the  roost  takes  less 
time  than  the  evening  return.  As  I  approached 
it  in  the  semi-darkness  at  6.25  a.  m.,  on  Janu- 
ary 7,  a  distant  cawing  could  be  heard  and  a  min- 
ute later  nine  crows  were  seen  flying  off  to  the 
south,  and  three  minutes  later,  nine  went  off  to 
the  west.  At  half-past  six,  after  a  great  uproar 
of  caws  and  uks^  occasional  rattles  and  wailing 
ahhhs^  a  broad  stream  boiled  up  from  the  roosting 


A  WINTER  CROW  ROOST         149 

trees  and  spread  off  towards  the  west,  obscurely 
seen  in  the  dim  light  except  when  the  birds  stood 
out  against  the  beginning  red  glow  in  the  east 
or  against  the  light  of  the  setting  moon  in  the 
west.  As  I  stood  concealed  on  the  hillside 
among  a  grove  of  spruces,  the  crows  passed  over 
my  head,  noiselessly,  except  for  the  silken  swish 
of  their  wings,  fully  a  thousand  strong.  Then  no 
more  for  over  five  minutes  although  the  tumult 
in  the  roost  continued  in  increasing  volume.  At 
6.40  the  roost  boiled  over  again,  but  the  birds, 
spreading  in  all  directions,  soon  united  into  a 
black  river  that  flowed  over  the  dunes  to  the 
south.  The  settings  for  this  black  stream  were 
the  white  sand  dunes  and  the  luminous  glow  in 
the  east  which  had  become  a  brilliant  crimson, 
fading  to  orange  and  yellow  and  cut  by  a  broad 
band  of  pink  haze  that  streamed  up  to  the  zenith. 
The  morning  star  glowed  brightly  until  almost 
broad  daylight.  The  sun  rose  at  7.14.  At  7, 
I  entered  the  roost  and  hurried  away  the  few  hun- 
dred remaining  birds  some  of  whom  were  in  the 
bare  tops  of  the  hard  woods  ready  to  depart, 
while  others  were  still  dozing  in  the  evergreens 


150  BEACH  GRASS 

below.  The  air  was  close  and  smelt  like  a  hen- 
house.    Pellets  and  droppings  were  everywhere. 

On  the  last  day  of  1916,  Dr.  Tyler  and  I 
watched  the  crows  leaving  the  roost.  We  ar- 
rived at  6.40,  too  late  to  see  the  first  departures. 
From  time  to  time  we  counted  the  birds  going  by 
in  the  stream  to  the  south  and  as  our  counts 
showed  a  remarkable  agreement  they  may  be 
taken  as  substantially  accurate.  At  6.45,  105 
passed  in  a  minute;  at  6.50,  125  passed,  at  6.55, 
58  passed,  at  6.58,  121  passed  and  at  7.00,  63 
passed. 

The  starlings  left  the  roost  at  7  o'clock  and 
passed  us  with  a  chorus  of  shrill  cries  or  perhaps 
it  was  the  swish  of  their  wings  that  we  heard. 
They  were  intent  on  the  day's  hunt  for  food  and 
did  not  waste  time  on  setting-up  evolutions.  At 
7.13  the  sun  rose  and  the  roost  was  silent  and 
deserted. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  winter  there  is  plenty 
of  food  for  the  crows.  The  bayberry  and  stag- 
horn  sumach  bushes,  the  poison  ivy,  cat  briers 
and  red  cedars  are  laden  with  their  fruit.  The 
salt   marshes    and   beaches    furnish   a   bountiful 


A  WINTER  CROW  ROOST         151 

supply   of   food    in    the    form   of   mollusks   and 
crutaceans  as  well  as  in  dead  iish  and  other  car- 
rion brought  up  by  the  tides.     In  fact,  it  is  these 
marshes  and  beaches  that  make  such  a  great  con- 
course  of  crows   possible; — the    inland   country 
is  able  to  support  but  a  mere  fraction  of  sucli  a 
multitude.     If   the   winter   is   a   prolonged    and 
severe  one,  the  food  problem  becomes  more  and 
more  difficult.     All  the  bayberry  bushes  that  are 
not    covered    with    snow    are    stripped    of    their 
berries;  the  red  flames  of  the  sumach  are  battered 
and  reduced  to  a  spindling  central  stalk  with  but 
a   few   red   furry   seeds  remaining.     The  upper 
beach,  the  source  of  so  much  food  supply  in  dead 
fish,  crabs  and  mollusks,   is  encased  in   ice  and 
built   up   into   a   wall;    the   marshes    with    their 
wealth  of  small  snails  and  mussels  is  sealed  sev- 
eral feet  deep  in  tumbled  cakes  of  ice,  and  the 
tide  rises  and  falls  in  the  creeks  and  larger  estu- 
aries under   an  unbroken   icy  mantle.     All    the 
uplands  are  buried   in  snow.     It  is  difficult   to 
conceive    how    this    multitude    of    red-blooded, 
active  birds  can  glean  enough  food  umler  these 
conditions.     The  number  of  food  calories  needed 


152  BEACH  GRASS 

by  each  crow  must  be  large.  But  the  crow,  like 
the  Indian  and  all  creatures  of  nature,  is  well 
able  to  take  care  of  himself  and  to  utilize  every 
possible  source  of  food  supply.  Neither  a  feast 
nor  a  famine  disturbs  his  equanimity,  unless  the 
latter  is  too  prolonged. 

Although  most  of  the  birds  appeared  to  be 
endowed  with  plenty  of  strength  and  energy, 
one  at  least  on  February  22  seemed  to  be  suffer- 
ing from  the  hard  times.  This  crow  alighted  in 
a  feeble  tottering  manner  on  a  post  within  forty 
yards  of  me,  and  balanced  himself  with  difficulty. 
I  walked  to  within  thirty  3^ards  of  him  when  he 
wearily  took  wing  only  to  alight  in  a  similar 
way  on  another  post  a  couple  of  hundred  yards 
away.  When  flushed  from  this  he  managed  to 
fly  a  few  rods  to  the  roosting  grove. 

Two  other  crows  previous  to  this  incident  were 
found  dead  near  the  roost.  Both  were  normal 
in  size  as  shown  by  measurements,^  and  neither 

1  In  "The  birds  of  Essex  County,"  p.  243,  1  recorded  the  ex- 
amination of  a  crow  found  dead  early  in  March,  1904.  "The 
body  was  greatly  emaciated,  the  intestines  nearly  empty,  and 
the  stomach  contained  only  a  husk  of  oats  and  a  piece  of 
coal    ashes.     There    was    no    evidence    of    disease.     The    bird 


A  WINTER  CROW  ROOST         15^ 

showed  any  signs  of  injury.  One  was  very  thin. 
The  case  of  the  other  is  worth  recording  in  de- 
tail. It  was  on  January  first,  1917,  that  I  dis- 
covered a  crow  in  the  topmost  branch  of  a  sk-ndrr 
fifty- foot  ash  tree  on  the  edge  of  the  roost.  A 
string  had  in  some  way  become  entangled  about 
one  foot  and  the  branch  of  the  tree.  Struggle 
as  he  would  he  could  not  free  himself  and,  al- 
though he  could  perch  at  ease  on  the  branch,  he 
often  hung  head  downwards  from  it,  exhausted 
by  his  fruitless  efforts.  While  I  watched  him 
and  searched  my  brain  for  some  means  for  his 
release,  another  crow  repeatedly  swooped  down 
and  passed  within  a  few  feet  or  even  inches  of 
the  poor  captive.  Both  birds  were  cawing  vio- 
lently. As  it  was  impossible  to  climb  the  slender 
tree  I  decided  to  go  on  to  the  beach,  hoping  that 
in  my  absence  fortune  would  favor  the  bird,  and 
that  the  string  might  become  untangled.  On  m> 
return  an  hour  later  the  victim  was  still  tied 
fast,  while  on  the  ground  a  few  yards  from  the 
foot  of  the  tree  and  directly  in  my  path,  was  the 
body  of  a  crow  still  warm.     No  other  crow  was 

weighed  only  ten  ounces  and  was  small  in  every  way, — a  casj 
of   the   small   and   unfit   perishing." 


154  BEACH  GRASS 

in  the  neighborhood.  The  dead  crow  was  a 
male  of  normal  size,  as  shown  by  measurements, 
its  plumage  was  in  good  condition  and  it  showed 
every  evidence  of  perfect  health.  No  injury 
could  be  found  anywhere — there  was  no  sign  of 
hemorrhage  under  the  skin,  in  the  abdominal 
cavity  or  in  the  skull.  Fat  was  present  in  con- 
siderable amount,  especially  about  the  viscera. 

In  order  to  finish  the  story  it  may  be  recorded 
here  that  by  the  forcible  bending  down  of  the 
top  of  the  slender  ash  so  that  the  captive  crow 
could  be  reached  from  another  tree  this  unfor- 
tunate bird  (of  its  sex  I  am  ignorant)  was  re- 
leased only  to  die  on  the  following  day.  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  answer  the  question  as  to  the 
cause  of  the  death  of  the  crow  whose  autopsy  I 
have  related,  but  one  is  tempted  to  say  that  he 
died  of  grief  for  the  captive  one. 

On  relating  the  case  to  the  late  Mr.  William 
Brewster,  he  told  me  of  a  guinea  fowl  and  an 
Egyptian  goose  that  he  had  kept  together  from 
their  hatching  out.  Having  occasion  to  put 
chem  in  separate  enclosures,  he  found  that  they 
both  refused  to  eat  and  were  constantly  butting 


A  WINTER  CROW  ROOST         155 

their  heads  against  the  wire  mesh  that  separated 
them.  United  in  the  same  enclosure  again,  they 
proved  to  be  most  devoted  friends,  always  in 
each  other's  company.  At  last  the  guinea  fowl 
fell  ill  and  died  and  the  goose  was  found  dead 
on  the  following  day.  An  examination  showed 
disease  and  emaciation  in  the  case  of  the  guinea 
fowl,  but  no  signs  of  either  in  the  case  of  the 
goose. 

In  this  connection  the  following  incident  is 
also  pertinent.  On  a  lawn  near  the  sea  at  Mar- 
blehead,  Mr.  F.  A.  Saunders  and  I  discovered 
the  dead  body  of  a  Brunnich's  murre,  an  arctic 
sea-bird  of  the  auk  family  that  occasionally  wan- 
ders to  our  shores  in  winter.  The  bird  had  been 
dead  at  least  a  week.  Within  a  stone's  throw, 
just  outside  the  breakers,  swam  a  very  live  murre. 

Curiously  enough,  a  correspondent  in  Rock- 
port  related  later  a  similar  experience  with  a 
dead  and  living  murre,  and,  on  February  5,  k;22, 
Mr.  F.  A.  Saunders  and  I  found  a  third  instance. 
On  the  beach  at  Ipswich  was  a  dead  Brunnich's 
murre  and  not  far  away  and  close  to  the 
shore   swam    a   live    Brunnich's   murre,    a   most 


156  BEACH  GRASS 

unusual  bird  on  a  sandy  shore.  There  is 
certainly  more  than  chance  coincidence  in 
these  three  instances,  which,  I  believe  point 
to  the  faithfulness  of  the  survivor  of  a  pair. 

During  the  greater  part  of  the  day  the  roost 
is  deserted,  but  there  is  much  to  be  learned  of 
the  ways  of  the  crow  even  under  these  conditions. 
Pellets  and  droppings  are  everywhere  on  the 
ground  under  the  trees  as  well  as  in  the  sur- 
rounding fields,  and  they  are  especially  obvious 
when  the  ground  is  covered  with  snow.  The 
fact  that  the  snow  in  the  fields  near  the  roost  is 
well  trodden  by  the  crows  and  spotted  with  drop- 
pings and  pellets  might  lead  one  to  think  that 
the  birds  had  spent  the  night  there,  but  these 
studies  have  shown  that  the  field  was  merely  a 
reception  room  where  the  birds  met  before  retir- 
ing for  the  night. 

The  pellets  which  are  ejected  from  the  mouths 
of  the  birds  after  a  meal  and  are  composed  of  the 
useless  and  indigestible  portions  of  the  meal,  are 
cylindrical  in  shape,  rounded  at  the  ends  and 
measure  one  or  two  inches  in  length  and  about 
half-an-inch  or  more  in  diameter.     In  warm  or 


TRACKS   OF  CROW  TAKING   FLIGHT 


CROW    PELLETS    REGURGITATED 


A  WINTER  CROW  ROOST         i  ^-7 

wet  weather  they  speedily  break  up  and  iiiin<j;lc 
with  the  soil,  but  in  cold  weather  they  freeze  and 
retain  their  form.  A  study  of  these  pellets  reveal 
the  nature  of  the  corvine  dietary.  In  times  of 
plenty,  as  in  the  early  fall  when  berries  are  every- 
where, the  crows  are  extravagant  and  wasteful  in 
their  feeding  habits.  Much  nourishment  is 
thrown  out  in  these  pellets  before  it  has  had 
time  to  be  digested  in  the  stomach.  Like  the 
ancient  Romans  they  empty  their  stomachs  that 
they  may  feast  the  more.  Crows  take  no  in- 
terest in  food  conservation;  the  pellets  at  these 
times  show  much  wasted  food.  Not  so  in 
severe  winters  when  famine  is  close  at  hand. 
Then  every  bit  of  the  waxy  coat  of  myrtle  ber- 
ries is  digested  off  and  there  are  no  intact  cran- 
berries, as  in  the  bounteous  autumn,  but  onl)  the 
remnants  of  skin  and  seeds.  At  these  times  also 
some  ashes  are  to  be  found  in  their  pellets,  as 
if  the  birds  were  trying  to  quiet  the  stomach  crav- 
ing by  bulk,  and  hunger  had  made  them  bold  in 
visiting  the  refuse  piles  near  houses. 

I  collected  at  various  times,  from  November  to 
February,     several     hundred    of    these     pellets, 


158  BEACH  GRASS 

amounting  in  bulk  to  662  cubic  centimeters  of 
material  after  the  pellets  were  broken  up  into 
their  composite  parts.  This  I  sent  on  to  the 
Biological  Survey  at  Washington  and  received 
from  Mr.  Nelson,  Chief  of  the  Survey,  the  fol- 
lowing report :  "The  examination  of  crow  roost 
material  sent  in  by  you  has  been  completed  by 
Mr.  Kalmbach.  It  proved  to  be  a  most  interest- 
ing lot  of  pellets  containing  many  more  specifi- 
cally different  items  than  are  to  be  found  in  simi- 
lar material  from  roosts  in  this  vicinity.  I  am 
appending  herewith  the  result  of  this  examination 
The  numbers  connected  with  the  more  abundant 
seeds  are  approximate,  as  they  were  secured  by 
carefully  counting  the  seeds  in  a  portion  of  the 
material  and  then  multiplying  to  get  the  total. 

Insects 

1   Sphseroderus  lecontei  (Ground  beetle) 

Trace  of  another  carabid 

Traces  of  two  other  unknown  beetles 
3  Hypera  punctata  (clover-leaf  weevil) 
1    Sphenophorus  sp.  (bill-bug) 
1   Rhodobsenus  tridecimpunctatus   (bill-bug) 


A  WINTER  CROW  ROOSl  159 

1  Sitona  hispidula  (clover-root  curculio) 
17  acridids  (shorthorned  grasshoppers) 

2  Gryllus  (crickets) 

1  hymenopteron 
Trace  of  a  fly 

2  jaws  of  caterpillar 

3  small  Tineid  cocoons 

Other  Invertebrates 

Spider  fragments  and  cocoon 

Jaws  of  3  Nereis  sp.  (marine  worm) 

100  Melampus  sp.  (Black-footed  snail) 

A    few    fragments    and    about    750    operculi    of 

Littorina  sp.?  (periwinkle) 
Mytilus  sp.  (Mussel) 
Other  moUusk  fragments 
Parts  of  a  crab 

Vertebrates 

Bones  of  fish 

Bones  and  scales  of  snake 

Shell  of  hen's  egg 

4  Microtus  pennsylvanicus  (Meadow  mouse) 
1   Condylura  cristata  (Star-nosed  mole) 


i6o  BEACH  GRASS 

2  Blarina  brevicauda  (Short-tailed  shrew) 
Several  larger  bone  fragments  (carrion) 

Plants 

10,000  seeds  of  Myrica  carolinensis  (Bayberry) 
1,200     "        "Rhus    radicans    and    R.    vernix 
(Poison  Ivy  and  Poison  Su- 
mach) 
1,100     "       "  typhina  and  glabra  (Staghorn 
and  Smooth  Sumach) 
80     ''        "  Berberis  sp.   (Barberry) 
360     ''        "  Oxycoccus  sp.  (Cranberry) 
30     "       ''Juniperus   sp.    (Red  Cedar  and 

Low  Juniper) 
50     ''       "Smilax  sp.   (Cat-brier) 
100     "       "  Ilex  verticillata  (Winter  berry) 
2     "       "  Vitus  sp.  (Grape) 
2     "       "  Solanum  sp.   (Night-shade) 
A  few  kernels  of  oats  and  hulls 
A  few  kernels  of  wheat  and  hulls 
A  few  kernels  of  barley  and  hulls 
A  few  kernels  of  corn  (fragmentary)  and  hulls 
Trace  of  buckwheat 
Fragments  of  seeds  of  pumpkin  or  squash 


A  WINTER  CROW  ROOST  lOi 

Seed  and  skin  of  apple 

Pulp  of  pear  C?) 

Acorn 

Meat  of  an  unknown  nut 

A  piece  of  rotten  wood 

A  piece  of  cork 

Miscellaneous 

A  rubber  band 
Gravel 


CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Forest 

''Besides  the  motives  that  have  been  assigned  for 
these  plantations,  it  may  be  added  that  the  Grand  Khan 
IS  the  more  disposed  to  make  them,  from  the  circum- 
stance of  his  dreamers  and  astrologers  having  declared 
that  those  who  plant  trees  are  rewarded  with  long  life'' 

— Marco  Polo 

ONE  does  not  associate  a  forest  with  sand 
dunes  and  salt  marshes  but  The  Forest 
has  become  such  an  intimate  part  of  my 
life  in  these  regions,  I  would  fain  record  here  its 
history  and  charms.  All  naturalists  love  a  forest 
for  its  varied  collection  of  trees,  for  the  vegeta- 
tion of  its  floor,  for  the  birds  and  animals  it  shel- 
ters within  its  borders,  and  for  its  general  charms 
of  darkness  and  quiet  as  well  as  for  its  sweet  odors 
and  its  varied  voices  To  create  such  a  region 
within  the  limits  of  a  twelve  acre  lot  of  grass  land 

on  the  side  of  a  glacial  gravel  hill,  bordered  by 

162 


THE  "forest"   in    I906,   APPEARING  ABOVE  THE   GRASS 


THE 


"forest"  in   1921   (from  the  same  point] 


THE  FOREST  163 

salt  marshes  seemed  an  ambitious  untlcrtaking, 
but,  with  the  enthusiasm  of  youth,  although  some 
would  have  said  I  was  old  enou<j^h  to  know  better, 
I  dedicated  in  the  summer  of  1900  an  acre  of  nu' 
grass  land  to  what  I  fondly  named  my  "Forest." 
My  objects  were  two  fold:  firsts  to  make  a  col- 
lection of  New  England  trees  so  that  I  might 
become  familiar  with  them  in  all  stages  of 
growth. 

''No  distant  tree  hut  by  his  shape  was  known 
Or^  near  at  hand,  by  leaf  or  bark  alone.'' 

Foreign  emigrants  were  not  desired.  European 
trees,  so  commonly  planted  about  houses,  were  to 
be  rigidly  excluded.  Second,  to  make  an  attrac- 
tive place  for  birds.  On  the  latter  account  I  in- 
tended to  plant  the  trees  thickly,  and,  although  I 
might  later  thin  them  out  to  some  extent,  I  did 
not  propose  to  prune  off  the  lower  branches  in  the 
picnic  grove  style,  nor  did  I  wish  to  avoid  the 
crowding  common  to  real  forests,  and  attractive 
to  the  birds,  but  not  considered  desirable  by 
arboriculturists.  Not  that  I  loved  trees  less,  but 
birds  more. 


i64  BEACH  GRASS 

The  first  spring  I  transplanted  pitch  pines  and 
shad  bushes,  red  cedars  and  gray  birches  by  canoe, 
or  laboriously  in  bags  on  my  back  from  the  sand 
dunes  and  the  surrounding  pastures  and  planted 
them  at  random  in  the  grass.  It  was  a  hot  and 
dry  summer  and  nearly  all  of  these  died. 
Nothing  daunted  I  devised  the  following  winter 
a  more  active  campaign,  read  all  I  could  find  on 
the  forestation  of  waste  lands,  obtained  cata- 
logues of  tree  nurseries,  drew  elaborate  plans  for 
planting,  with  irregular  openings  and  vistas 
among  the  trees,  which  in  my  mind's  eye  I  could 
see  spreading  out  over  my  head.  My  forest  oc- 
cupied much  of  my  thoughts. 

By  intensive  work  on  occasional  week-ends  and 
holidays  that  spring  I  managed  to  plant  1400 
spindling  trees,  not  over  one  or  two  feet  high,  in 
the  forest,  and  about  a  thousand  similar  trees  in 
rows  by  an  old  hawthorn  hedge.  The  latter  con- 
stituted my  nursery  from  which  I  was  to  draw 
later.  Nearly  all  the  work  I  did  myself,  but  I 
had  a  little  help  at  times  from  an  ancient  gar- 
dener from  the  village,  whose  knowledge  in  these 
matters  and  flow  of  words  was  limitless.     With 


THE  FOREST  165 

a  heavy  mattock  I  would  chop  a  hole  thr()u;^^h  the 
tough  turf  and  loosen  the  soil  sufficiently  to  insert 
the  roots  of  the  little  tree,  pressin;^^  the  earth 
firmly  around  it.  It  was  hard  work  but  my  pro- 
phetic vision  of  the  forest  lured  me  on  and  I 
labored  hopefully. 

Of  the  trees  bought  at  the  nurseries,  there  were 
seven  hundred  tiny  white  pines,  hve  hundred 
each  of  white  maples,  elms  and  red  oaks  and  a 
nearly  equal  number  of  ashes.  Many  of  these  I 
intended  as  nurses  during  the  growing  period  in 
this  wind-swept  region,  as  trees  do  much  better 
under  these  circumstances  when  they  are  planted 
thickly.  In  these  early  years  I  rarely  went  to 
any  place  in  the  country  that  I  did  not  come  back 
with  specimens  of  the  trees  of  the  region,  some- 
times wrapt  in  paper  in  my  pocket,  or  in  my 
traveling  bag  or — if  a  more  extensive  collec- 
tion— packed  in  a  box.  With  critical,  greedy  e}'e 
I  scanned  my  friends'  fields  and  woods  for  m  \v 
seedlings.  I  brought  red  pines  and  balsam  tirs 
from  Shelburne,  New  Hampshire,  witch  hazel 
from  Arlington,  hemlocks  from  Brookline,  scrub 
oaks  from  West  Roxburv  and  cedars  from  Brain- 


i66  BEACH  GRASS 

tree.  William  Brewster  sent  me  some  white 
pines  from  Concord  and  other  friends  remem- 
bered me  from  time  to  time,  but  most  of  all  I 
scoured  the  neighboring  woods  and  fields  of 
Ipswich  and  especially  the  sand  dunes  for  new 
and  interesting  additions  to  my  forest  area.  Old 
Captain  Ellsworth  had  saved  for  me  a  hne  beach 
plum  near  the  lighthouse.  As  my  time  in  the 
spring  and  fall — the  proper  transplanting  season 
— was  very  limited  I  had  need  to  transplant  in 
midsummer  during  my  vacation.  Fortunately 
evergreens  could  safely  be  transplanted  at  this 
season  but  my  broad-leaf  ventures  were  only  oc- 
casionally successful. 

There  had  been  no  preliminary  work,  no 
ploughing  nor  harrowing  and  no  subsequent  cul- 
tivation— I  had  neither  time  nor  means  for  these 
— and  I  was  convinced  from  what  I  had  read 
that,  although  these  were  of  course  desirable, 
they  could  be  dispensed  with.  I  was  prepared  to 
lose  many  of  my  trees  in  the  struggle,  but  I  felt 
sure  I  should  triumph  in  the  end.  Nothing  ven- 
ture, nothing  have  is  often  a  good  motto. 

Many  of  my  wise  friends,  looking  down  on 


THE  FOREST  167 

my  little  forest,  shook  their  heads  and  said  they 
feared  the  trees  would  be  root-bound  by  the  grass 
and  remain  poor  stunted  things  even  if  they 
managed  to  live.  My  brother  thoughtfully  sug- 
gested I  should  put  up  a  sign,  "Do  not  tread  on 
the  forest  in  the  grass."  Partly  that  I  might 
see  the  trees  and  thus  gain  courage,  and  partly 
to  aid  their  gro^vth,  I  used  laboriously  to  cut  the 
grass  about  them  with  a  sickle,  and  mulch 
them.  Occasionally  by  a  miss-stroke,  a  forest 
tree  was  laid  low.  I  had  great  need  to  be 
philosophical. 

In  those  discouraging  days  the  Myopia  Club 
of  Hamilton  held  their  annual  fox-hunt  or, 
rather,  anise-seed  bag  chase  in  our  neighborhood. 
One  autumn  morning,  to  my  dismay,  the  rider, 
with  his  anise-seed  bag  trailing  behind,  rode 
straight  through  my  forest.  I  arranged  saw- 
horses  and  stretched  strings  as  temporary  fences 
to  keep  off  the  hunters  and  confine  them  to  a 
path  below  the  forest,  but  in  the  afternoon  the 
red-cOated  riders  jumped  the  saw-horses  and  lived 
up  to  their  names  by  riding  over  the  forest  without 
seeing  it.     I  suppose  they  thought  I  had  arranged 


i68  BEACH  GRASS 

the   obstructions   as  hurdles   for   their  pleasure. 

After  the  chase  had  swept  by  and  the  red 
coats,  dotting  the  field,  were  lost  to  sight  in  the 
distance,  the  whole  family  anxiously  inspected 
the  poor  neglected  forest.  Although  there  were 
hoof  prints  close  to  some  of  the  forest  trees,  not 
a  single  one  had  been  injured.  They  had  had 
many  narrow  escapes  and  I  felt  there  was  a  future 
for  them. 

At  first  my  forest  made  but  a  pitiable  appear- 
ance. It  vanished  when  the  grass  was  tall  and 
green  in  early  summer,  but,  with  each  returning 
fall  when  the  grass  was  brown  and  prostrate,  I 
was  cheered  by  the  reappearance  of  the  little  trees 
on  the  hillside,  and,  after  three  years,  some  of 
the  trees  were  plainly  noticeable  above  the  grass 
at  all  times. 

At  the  end  of  the  third  year  I  took  a  census ;  of 
the  trees  by  a  method  which  I  imagine  is  new  to 
foresters.  I  prepared  two  strings,  each  the  length 
of  the  forest,  and  tied  rags  to  them  at  intervals 
of  ten  feet.  I  stretched  the  first  string  along  the 
upper  edge  of  the  forest,  the  second  ten  feet 
within  the  sacred  precincts.     In  this  way  I  laid 


THE  FOREST  169 

out  squares  measuring  ten  feet  on  each  sitlc  and 
containing  a  hundred  square  feet,  and  I  identi- 
fied, counted  and  recorded  all  the  trees  and 
bushes  in  each  of  these  squares.  Then  I  took 
the  outside  string  and  lifted  it  over  the  forest 
trees  and  over  the  second  string.  Again  1  counted 
the  trees  in  the  squares  and  repeated  the  process 
with  the  secc^nd  string.  By  alternately  passing 
the  strings  over  each  other  and  over  the  loftiest 
forest  trees  I  was  able  to  make  a  most  intimate 
and  accurate  census  of  my  forest,  and  all  it  con- 
tained and  I  plotted  an  elaborate  chart  of  the 
same.  The  result  indicated  about  tifty-five  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  New  England  trees  and  some 
twelve  hundred  individuals.  At  the  end  of  this 
chapter  I  have  made  a  list  of  the  different  trees. 
Nearly  all  the  species  are  in  the  forest,  but  some 
are  now  to  be  found  in  other  places  in  my  twelve 
acre  lot. 

Time  went  by  and  it  was  evident  that  the 
trees  had  won  over  the  grass,  which  grew  scantier 
and  scantier  in  the  shade.  Even  the  wild  straw- 
berries, that  had  at  first  increased  with  the  killing 
out  of  the  grass,  were  disappearing,  and  I  began 


170  BEACH  GRASS 

to  introduce  shade-loving  forest  plants — hepat- 
icas,  dog's-tooth  violets,  bloodroot  and  ferns. 
Under  the  pines  was  a  smooth  brown  carpet  of 
needles  where  a  few  years  before  had  been  a 
mowing  field.  One  coxild  sit  or  even  stand  in 
seclusion,  hidden  in  the  forest.  I  was  filled  with 
pride  and  happiness. 

It  is  an  interesting  and  surprising  thing  that  so 
many  different  kinds  of  trees  should  grow  so  well, 
or  even  grow  at  all  in  the  same  locality.  Speci- 
mens of  nearly  all  the  different  kinds  grew  fairly 
well.  Of  the  evergreens  the  white  spruce  grew 
better  than  the  black  or  red  spruce.  It  is  in- 
teresting to  be  able  to  watch  and  study  these 
tree  species  side  by  side.  The  pitch  pine  was 
the  most  difficult  pine  to  transplant  on  account 
of  its  tap-root.  The  magnificent  red  pine  with 
its  splendid  long  needles,  two  in  a  bunch,  grew 
luxuriantly.  The  American  larch,  frequenter  of 
bogs,  grew  vigorously  on  my  dry  hillside.  The 
only  trees  that  did  distinctly  poorly  were  the 
beech  and  the  chestnut.  Of  the  former  only  one 
survives  and  that,  after  twenty  years,  is  only 
four  feet  high,  but  it  is  vigorous  and  promises 


THE  FOREST  171 

better  growth.     The  chestnut  is  handicapped  by 
the  blight  yet  two  or  three  still  live. 

When  the  forest  was  in  its  fourteenth  year 
and  some  of  the  trees  had  reached  the  respectable 
height  of  twenty  feet,  I  planned  a  shelter  in  its 
precincts.  With  the  help  of  the  light-keeper, 
a  lean-to  was  built  in  a  clump  of  white  pines  in 
the  heart  of  the  forest.  The  pines  were  some 
of  those  Mr.  William  Brewster  had  sent  me  from 
his  farm  in  Concord,  dug  not  far  from  his  log 
cabin  on  the  Concord  River.  Theirs  was  a  pleas- 
ant association.  They  had  reached  a  height  of 
twelve  or  fifteen  feet  and  in  one  of  them  a  crow 
had  built  her  nest.  We  dug  four  holes  through 
the  brown  carpet  of  needles  and  the  black  loam 
to  white  glacial  clay,  and  planted  four  stout 
cedar  posts.  A  slanting  roof  above  of  spruce 
boards  covered  with  shingles  and  a  flat  floor 
eight  feet  square  beneath  completed  the  structure, 
with  the  exception  of  wire  netting  on  three  sides 
and  cotton  netting  curtains  in  front.  The  crow's 
nest,  which  had  been  deserted,  made  a  convenient 
shelf  for  our  tools  during  the  building.  Inside 
the  lean-to  there  was  room  for  two  cot  beds,  and 


172  BEACH  GRASS 

a  man  could  stand  erect  at  the  entrance.  A  post 
planted  in  front  with  a  few  short  boards  on  top 
made  a  convenient  writing  table.  Here  I  like 
to  sleep  at  night  surrounded  by  my  friends  the 
trees  and  from  their  branches  come  the  songs  of 
many  birds. 

The  birds  early  discovered  the  forest's  attrac- 
tions. During  the  spring  and  fall  it  becomes  a 
nesting  and  feeding  place  for  many  migrants.  It 
is  an  oasis  in  a  desert  of  salt  marshes  to  north  and 
south.  Delicate  warblers  flying  across  the 
marshes  seek  rest  in  its  protecting  arms.  My 
list  of  migrants  is  large,  and,  as  time  goes  on,  I 
am  inclined  to  believe,  I  shall  find  that  many 
will  tarry  there  regularly.  Birds,  like  most  of 
us,  are  creatures  of  habit,  and,  if  they  find  a  con- 
venient stopping  place — a  good  inn — on  their 
twice  yearly  journeys,  they  will  come  back  to  it. 
For  example,  on  three  Memorial  Days  at  intervals 
of  several  years  I  have  found  a  yellow-bellied  fly- 
catcher singing  in  my  forest.  Doubtless  he 
stopped  there  on  other  years,  but,  if  the  day  were 
neither  a  Sunday  nor  a  holiday,  his  presence  was 
not  noted.     Although  the  spring  and  fall  migra- 


THE   LEAN-TO   IN   THE       FOREST,      APRIL  4,    I915 


ICE    ARCH    IN    MARSH 


THE  FOREST  173 

tions  of  birds  are  surprisingly  regular,  they  are 
not  always  on  calendar  dates,  as  is  the  popular 
belief,  but  are  much  influenced  by  the  weather. 

When  the  forest  was  still  in  its  early  child- 
hood, song  sparrows,  yellow  warblers  and  Mary- 
land yellow-throats  enjoyed  nesting  in  its  bushy 
precincts.  A  pair  of  tree  swallows  nested  in  a 
box  on  a  spindling  ash  tree,  and  another  pair  in 
a  hollow  tree  trunk  brought  from  the  dunes.  As 
the  forest  grew,  these  nesting  sites  became  too 
shaded  and  hidden  for  the  swallows,  and,  to  my 
great  joy  a  pair  of  chickadees  occupied  the  box. 

The  history  of  the  chickadees'  adoption  of  the 
forest  as  a  home  is  worth  relating.  Chickadees 
have  been  occasional  winter  visitors  to  my  farm 
but,  with  the  summer,  they  disappeared  to  more 
congenial  regions.  They  do  not  care  for  grass 
fields  and  gardens,  but  need  woods  for  their 
domestic  life.  I  therefore  set  deliberately  to 
work  to  make  my  place  attractive  to  them  all 
the  year.  In  winter  I  put  food  on  a  feeding 
shelf  and  provided  an  automatic  feeder  to  act 
in  my  absence.  As  a  consequence,  several  chick- 
adees were  always  to  be  seen  about  the  place  that 


174  BEACH  GRASS 

winter.  A  further  and  more  interesting  conse- 
quence resulted.  The  summer  before  there  had 
been  for  the  first  time  a  considerable  invasion  of 
gypsy  caterpillars  into  my  forest,  although  I  had 
creosoted  as  many  of  the  egg  clusters  as  could  be 
found  the  previous  winter.  At  every  week-end 
of  the  first  winter  that  the  little  band  of  chick- 
adees remained  continually  at  the  farm,  they  were 
to  be  seen  not  only  at  my  feeding  shelf  but  also 
in  the  forest,  and  the  egg  clusters  seemed  to  be 
disappearing.  No  creosote  was  used  and  at 
the  end  of  the  winter  the  egg  clusters  were  gone. 
I  have  seen  chickadees  eating  these  eggs,  and  I 
believe  my  riddance  of  these  pests  was  due  to 
them,  for,  although  the  forest  has  never  been 
sprayed  and  the  gypsy  eggs  have  only  once  been 
creosoted,  the  forest  has  been  practically  free 
from  this  destructive  worm.  I  regard  this  as  an 
object  lesson  in  the  value  of  birds  in  keeping  down 
insect  pests.  To  obtain  the  best  results  it  may 
be  necessary  to  spray  the  fruit-trees  and  some- 
times other  trees  to  save  them,  but,  in  so  doing, 
one  loses  to  a  large  extent  the  beneficial  work  of 
the  birds.     Moreover,   there   is  strong  evidence 


THE  FOREST  175 

that  the  poisonous  sprays  used  result  in  a  con- 
siderable destruction  of  our  birds.  They  drink 
of  the  poison  drops  on  leaves,  just  as  they  drink 
from  the  same  cups  after  a  shower  or  a  heavy 
dew. 

A  pair  of  chickadees  nested  in  a  box  in  my  for- 
est that  spring  and  nearly  every  spring  since,  and 
their  clear  whistling  "pee  wee"  and  their  familiar 
and  attractive  ways  added  much  to  the  charm  of 
life.  On  one  occasion,  in  late  fall,  a  chickadee 
had  entered  through  the  open  door  the  screened 
open-air  dining-room  of  my  house.  He  was  con- 
siderably alarmed  and  fluttered  against  the  wire 
netting.  Finally,  escaping  by  the  door,  he  flew 
around  the  corner  of  the  house,  passing  me  with 
the  speed  of  a  winged  arrow,  crossed  the  drive- 
way and  popped  into  a  bird  box  by  the  stone  wall. 
He  immediately  turned  and  thrust  his  head  out 
and  sang  his  clear  whistling  song  as  if  in  triumph 
at  his  escape. 

Birds  in  moments  of  intense  excitement,  even 
when  this  excitement  is  not  due  to  courtship, 
sometimes  burst  into  3ong.  An  extraordinary 
example  of  this  once  occurred  in  the  forest   m 


176  BEACH  GRASS 

late  May.  I  awoke  in  the  morning  to  find  a 
Maryland  yellow-throat  in  the  plumage  of  the 
female  flying  distractedly  about  the  lean-to  try- 
ing to  get  out,  fanning  my  face  at  times  with  its 
wings,  and  at  times  alighting  on  my  pillow.  It 
had  come  in  through  the  opening  between  the  two 
netting  curtains  at  the  entrance.  As  it  could  not 
find  its  way  out  I  reached  over  and  pulled  the 
curtains  apart,  with  the  result  of  causing  it  still 
greater  fright  but  allowing  it  to  escape.  It  flew 
a  few  yards  to  a  perch  and  at  once,  to  my  great 
surprise,  poured  forth  a  song  which  could  be 
recognized  as  the  "witchery"  song  of  the  male, 
but  much  abbreviated  and  inferior  in  tone  and 
volume.  It  is  possible  that  the  bird  was  a  young 
male  of  the  previous  year,  that,  through  some  re- 
tardation in  development,  had  not  yet  assumed 
the  full  nuptial  dress  of  the  adult  male,  nor  the 
full  courtship  voice,  or  it  may  have  been,  as  it 
appeared,  a  female,  and,  under  the  intense  stress 
of  captivity  and  escape,  had  been  wrought  up  to 
the  pitch  of  song. 

One  day  in  winter  I  found  a  handsome  cock 
pheasant    safely    sheltered    in    the    lean-to.     As 


THE  FOREST  177 

there  were  no  mosquito  curtains  in  front  at  this 
season,  his  escape  was  an  easy  one. 

In  the  lower  part  of  the  forest,  just  above  the 
salt  marsh,  is  a  springy  place  and  fairly  open. 
An  alder  brought  from  the  dunes  grew  vigorously. 
It  was  perfect  woodcock  country  in  miniature, 
but  I  never  expected  to  find  woodcock  there. 
However,  early  one  morning  as  I  was  hurr}  ing 
from  my  lean-to  for  a  bath  in  the  salt  creek,  I 
nearly  stepped  on  two  young  woodcocks  that 
fluttered  off  into  the  bushes.  After  this  on  sev- 
eral occasions  I  started  an  adult  woodcock  that 
rose  like  a  whistling  meteor  through  the  forest. 
I  have  watched  and  listened  every  spring  since 
for  the  courtship  song  and  flight  of  this  interest- 
ing bird,  but  as  yet  the  pair  have  not  returned. 

To  awaken  on  a  spring  morning  and  listen  to 
the  morning  chorus  of  birds  is  one  of  the  greatest 
pleasures  that  comes  from  my  occupation  of  the 
lean-to  in  the  forest.  Bird  songs  are  also  to  be 
heard  there  at  night.  The  chipping  sparro\N 
sings  occasionally  at  this  season,  the  song  sparrow 
much  more  commonly.  The  black-billed  cuckoo 
sometimes  pours  forth  his  curious  song  not  only 


lyS  BEACH  GRASS 

from  a  perch  but  from  the  wing  as  he  slowly  flies 
about  the  darkness.  First  he  clears  his  throat 
mast  vigorously;  then  he  calls  cow  a  number  of 
times  at  regular  intervals  but  soon  changes  to 
cow'Cow^  coW'Cow  or  cow-cow-cow.  His  doublets 
and  triplets  distinguish  him  from  his  yellow- 
billed  cousin,  whose  cows  are  as  woodeny  as  if 
knocked  out  by  a  mallet. 

The  cuckoo  is  called  the  "rain-crow"  because 
it  is  thought  he  sings  before  a  rain.  Many  a 
farmer  has  been  cheered  in  a  dry  "spell"  by  hear- 
ing the  voice  of  this  bird.  I  am  afraid  his  song 
is  as  of  little  value  for  meteorological  predic- 
tions as  is  the  call  of  the  bob-white,  who  is  some- 
times thought  to  say  "more  wet."  The  value  of 
the  cuckoo  to  the  farmer  is  based  on  more  sub- 
stantial foundation,  however,  for  he  is  one  of  the 
few  birds  fond  of  hairy  caterpillars.  The  nests 
of  tent  caterpillars  may  be  seen  full  of  punctures, 
and  cuckoos'  stomachs  are  often  fury  with  cater- 
pillar hairs. 

The  ''stake-driving"  of  the  bittern  may  often 
be  heard   from  my  cot  in  the  darkness  before 


THE  FOREST  lyc; 

dawn,  less  commonly  the  "pumping."  Both  of 
these  terms  accurately  describe  the  nuptial  "song" 
of  this  bird.  When  near  at  hand  the  bittern's 
song  resembles  the  sound  of  an  old  farm)ard 
pump  in  action — kcr-chunk^  kcr-chunk.  One  can 
even  hear  a  preliminary  gurgling.  At  a  distance, 
only  one  of  the  notes  is  heard  which  sounds  for 
all  the  world  like  the  blow  of  a  mallet  on  a  post 
— like  stake-driving  in  the  marsh. 

Occasionally  a  Maryland  yellow-throat  sings  in 
the  night  or  a  kingbird  indulges  in  his  peculiar 
song  and  dance  which  he  is  also  prone  to  do  in 
the  late  evening  when  the  light  is  so  poor  that 
he  is  hardly  visible.  It  is  a  zig-zag  and  erratic 
dance,  a  dart  this  way  and  then  that,  high  up 
in  the  air,  with  an  accompaniment  of  double 
screams,  harsh  to  our  ear,  but  pleasing,  doubtless, 
to  his  mate. 

In  the  dusk  of  spring  evenings  the  song  of  the 
greater  yellow-legs,  comes  up  from  the  salt 
marshes,  and  one  may  get  a  glimpse  through  the 
trees  of  the  long-legged  birds  stalking  about  in 
the  sloughs  or  flashing  out  their  strikingly  white 


i8o  BEACH  GRASS 

rumps  as  they  fly.  Their  song  has  an  appealing 
tone  and  a  romantic  fervor  and  appears  to  ask, 
will-yer^  will-yer^  will-yer^ 

A  true  bird  of  the  night  is  the  screech  owl  and 
his  mournful  serenade  may  often  be  heard  in 
my  forest.  The  term  screech  owl  is  a  misnomer 
for  he  does  not  screech  but  utters  a  quavering, 
mournful  whistle  which  ends, — if  one  is  near 
enough  to  hear  it, — with  two  or  three  guttural, 
woodeny  notes.  Two  other  birds  of  the  night  fre- 
quently announce  their  presence  from  the  marshes, 
the  night  heron  by  varied  quawks  and  the  black 
duck  by  harsh  quacks. 

During  the  migrations,  especially  in  the  fall, 
one  can  hear  the  birds  calling  to  each  other  as 
they  fly  over  in  the  night.  These  calls,  so  evi- 
dent to  a  bird  student,  are  unheard  by  the  or- 
dinary man.  To  him  they  are  non-existent  and 
he  can  be  brought  to  hear  them  only  with  con- 
siderable difficulty.  He  hears  the  noises  of  the 
street  or  of  the  countryside,  the  distant  sound 
of  voices,  bells  ringing  or  the  barking  of  a  dog, 
but  he  seems  unable  to  concentrate  his  attention 
on  the  lisping  notes  and  distinctive  calls,  so  fa- 


THE  FOREST  181 

miliar  to  the  ornithologist,  that  comes  showering 
down  from  the  sky. 

As  is  well  known,  most  of  the  smaller  birds 
migrate  by  night.  The  reason  of  tliis  is  that  they 
are  unable  to  find  their  insect  or  vegetable  food 
in  the  dark,  and  they  must  needs  devote  the  day 
to  that  important  function,  snatching  a  few 
w^inks  of  sleep  when  they  can.  Birds  that  can 
feed  as  they  fly,  like  swallows  and  night  hawks, 
and  also  strong  flying  birds  like  the  crow  and 
robin  and,  I  believe,  the  hummingbird  migrate 
by  day  and  sleep  at  night  as  usual.  Many  of  the 
ducks  and  shore  birds  migrate  by  day  as  the}'  are 
able  to  feed  at  night  and  all  of  them  are  strong 
fliers.  The  delicate  warblers,  wrens,  sparrows 
and  flycatchers  make  the  long  journeys  at  night, 
and  on  favorable  nights  the  air  is  filled  with 
their  calls  as  they  cheer  each  other  on  their 
travels. 

I  am  inclined  to  think,  as  a  result  of  many 
observations,  that  the  first  regular  morning  awak- 
ening and  song  of  our  summer  residents  is  that  of 
the  tree  swallow.  It  is  a  simple  song  a  couj^le  ot 
notes  frequently  repeated,   but,   dropping  down 


i82  BEACH  GRASS 

from  the  sky  just  before  dawn  from  a  multitude 
of  throats,  it  is  a  pleasing  forerunner  of  the  day. 
The  robin  is  a  close  second  as  an  early  riser,  and 
next  the  song  sparrow.  A  robin  gives  a  challenge 
call,  there  is  a  rustle  among  the  hundreds  of  robins 
that  roost  in  the  forest,  a  bird  carols  forth  and 
soon  the  whole  robin  chorus  bursts  on  the  ear, 
a  glorious  morning  hymn  of  praise  for  the  sun, 
clear,  rich  pure  and  holy.  A  catbird  sings  from 
the  roof  close  to  my  head,  a  yellow  warbler  and  a 
Maryland  yellow-throat  from  a  birch  near-by, 
bobolinks  and  meadowlarks  sing  from  and  over 
the  fields,  a  kingfisher  rattles  as  he  flies  over  the 
forest  on  his  way  to  the  creek  to  fish,  and  crows, 
rather  lazy  about  awakening,  caw  from  the  big 
nut  tree,  or  utter  their  crackling  song. 

Among  the  winter  birds  that  visit  the  forest 
the  northern  shrike  is  always  worth  seeing.  On 
rare  occasions  with  us  he  sings,  and  he  has  per- 
formed from  a  tree-top  in  the  forest.  To  an 
optimist  his  song  is  well  worth  hearing  so  abound- 
ing is  it  in  sweet  musical  sounds — full-throated 
robin-like  warbles,  clear  notes  like  the  bell-tones 
of  a  blue  jay,  and  pretty  trills.     These  he  in- 


THE  FOREST  183 

tersperses  with  notes  far  from  pleasing — har^h 
and  rasping  ones — and  a  pessimist,  having 
these  uppermost  in  his  mind,  would  put  tiown  the 
song  as  a  very  undesirable  one.  It  is  well  to 
pass  lightly  over  the  unpleasant  things  of  life 
and  lay  stress  on  the  pleasing. 

Audubon  believed  that  these  discordant  cries 
of  the  shrike  were  imitations  of  birds  in  distress 
and  that  they  served  to  beguile  small  birds 
within  its  reach.  This  idea  comes  down  from 
the  Middle  Ages,  for  one  Dame  Juliana  Berners 
denounced  for  the  same  reason  the  European 
gray  shrike  and  stigmatized  it  as  "an  ungrateful! 
subtell  fowle." 

The  redpolls  and  siskins,  the  crossbills  both  red 
and  white-winged  and  the  pine  grosbeak  have 
all  visited  my  forest  from  the  north,  and,  on  one 
occasion,  I  was  so  fortunate  as  to  find  several 
evening  grosbeaks,  that  splendid  yellow  and  black 
bird  of  the  northwest,  feasting  on  the  seeds  of 
the  box  elder.  Of  late  years  this  accidental 
winter  visitor  has  become  almost  a  regular  visi- 
tor, and  he  is  particularly  fond  of  the  seeds  of 
the  box  elder  or  ash-leaved  maple.     This   tree 


i84  BEACH  GRASS 

has  been  planted  extensively  in  the  Great  Plains 
and,  it  is  believed  that,  beguiled  by  its  seeds,  the 
evening  grosbeak  has  been  led  even  to  our  Eastern 
Coast. 

Not  only  are  bird  songs  interesting  and  de- 
lightful, but  even  the  faintest  calls  and  notes 
may  be  the  source  of  great  pleasure.  The 
whistling  call  of  the  white-throated  sparrow,  the 
lisp  of  the  fox  sparrow,  the  distinctive  calls  of 
the  myrtle  and  the  magnolia  warblers  for  ex- 
ample, heard  in  the  spring  and  autumn  migra- 
tions, arouse  emotions  which  help  to  carry  a  man 
through  a  busy  and  trying  day.  There  is  an 
intellectual  pleasure  and  a  feeling  of  mastery 
that  springs  from  it,  in  being  able  to  recognize  a 
faint  call  and  to  picture  the  exact  appearance  of 
the  bird,  from  which  it  comes,  and  to  recall  its 
home  environment  in  the  north.  One  can  smell  / 
the  balsam  fir  and  the  fragrant  Linnea,  and  feel 
the  cool  breath  of  northern  air.  The  ornitholo- 
gist in  particular  or  the  naturalist  in  general,  the 
greater  part  of  whose  life  is  spent  in  the  busy 
haunts  of  men,  leads  a  double  life  of  which  his 
acquaintances  know  nothing,  which  is  indeed  a 


THE  FOREST  iS,- 

sealed  book  even  to  his  intimate  friends,  if  they 
are  destitute  of  similar  tastes  and  knowledge. 
To  their  ears  he  speaks  a  stran<:;e  hm<^aj^e,  he 
describes  what  is  before  them  that  they  do  not 
see,  what  is  audible  to  all,  that  they  do  not  hear. 
As  a  rule  the  naturalist  is  silent  on  these  subjects 
when  he  is  among  the  Philistines,  but  enthu- 
siastic and  even  loquacious  when  with  the  elect 
and  the  sympathetic. 

The  list  of  birds  I  have  heard  from  my  cot  in 
the  forest  is  a  long  one  and  I  shall  not  burden 
the  reader  with  it.  I  have  observed  as  many  as 
one  hundred  and  hfty  different  kinds  of  birds  on 
or  from  my  farm,  many  of  these  are  birds  of  pas- 
sage or  at  least  nest  elsewhere.  In  1915  I  made 
a  census  for  the  United  States  department  of 
agriculture  of  birds  that  nest  on  my  farm  and 
the  list  totaled  twenty-eight  species.  All  ot 
these  I  have  heard  from  my  cot  in  the  forest. 
They  are  as  follows:  ring-necked  pheasant,  black- 
billed  cuckoo,  flicker,  phoebe,  kingbird,  crow, 
bobolink,  red-winged  blackbird,  meadow-lark, 
Baltimore  oriole,  bronzed  grackle,  purple  tincli, 
goldfinch,  vesper.  Savannah,  chipping  and  song 


i86  BEACH  GRASS 

sparrows,  barn  and  tree  swallows,  cedar  waxwing, 
red-eyed  vireo,  yellow  warbler,  Maryland  yellow- 
throat,  redstart,  catbird,  brown  thrasher,  robin 
and  bluebird.  There  is  an  advantage  in  dwell- 
ing in  a  small  forest :  one  can  also  hear  the  birds 
of  the  fields  and  meadows  outside. 

The  catbird  is  handicapped  by  his  name  and 
is  not  appreciated  as  he  should  be.  It  is  true  that 
he  mews  like  a  cat,  but  his  song  although  varying 
much,  is  always  interesting  and  often  sweet  and 
musical.  It  is  interesting  because  the  catbird  is 
a  mimic — not  nearly  as  good  a  one  as  his  cousin 
the  mocking  bird — but  well  worth  listening  to  for 
the  surprises  he  affords.  I  was  once  paddling 
on  the  Ipswich  River  when  a  catbird  suddenly 
swooped  down  across  my  bow  uttering  a  rattle 
that  almost  deceived  me  into  thinking  him  to 
be  a  kingfisher.  A  gifted  individual  that  has 
sung  in  my  forest  has  imitated  some  of  the  de- 
lightful strains  of  the  rose-breasted  grosbeak  as 
well  as  those  of  the  red-eyed  vireo,  and  has  varied 
his  performance  by  scolding  like  a  blue  jay. 
Other  bird  notes  that  I  have  heard  mimicked  by 
catbirds  are  the  chewink,  the  robin,  whose  alarm 


THE  FOREST  187 

note,  dick  dick^  he  often  imitates  perfectly,  more 
rarely  his  song,  the  wood  thrush,  veer}',  l)r()\vn 
thrasher,  goldfinch,  flicker,  bob-white  and  greater 
yellow-legs.  The  call  of  this  large  wader,  the 
grand  chevalier  with  the  legs  yellow,  as  the 
French  Canadians  say,  was  so  perfectly  imitated 
that  I  was  not  undeceived  until  I  saw  the  catbird, 
who  changed  his  note  on  my  intrusion  to  mews. 

The  catbird  appears  to  be  constantly  impro- 
vising and  practicing  new  combinations  in  the 
process  of  which  he  frequently  strikes  a  false 
or  harsh  note.  While  the  brown  thrasher  avoids 
these  mistakes  and  regularly  repeats  each  note  or 
phrase,  the  catbird  indulges  in  repetition  only 
when  a  phrase  happens  to  tickle  his  fancy.  Thus 
a  bird  heard  from  my  cot  sang  a  pleasing  and 
musical  phrase  that  sounded  like  Fctcr-boro,  and 
repeated  it  five  or  six  times.  After  this  he 
mewed  to  show  that  he  was  not  too  idealistic 
nor  stuck  up,  and  then  tried  another  musical 
combination.  Do  not  disdain  to  listen  to  the  cat- 
bird on  account  of  his  name  in  the  same  toolish 
way  that  people  decline  to  eat  dogfish  on  account 
of  its  name.     There  is  unfortunately  a  great  deal 


i88  BEACH  GRASS 

in  a  name  after  all,  and  even  a  rose  called  by 
some  vulgar  name  would  not  smell  as  sweet  to 
the  multitude. 

Another  bird  whose  reputation  as  a  singer  is 
not  of  the  best,  suffers  unjustly,  I  believe,  from 
the  imputation  of  being  prosy,  monotonous  and 
long  drawn  out  in  his  singing.  He  is  even  called 
a  preacher  in  an  uncomplimentary  sense.  I  refer 
to  the  red-eyed  vireo  whom  I  am  glad  to  be  able 
to  include  in  my  forest  orchestra,  for  to  me  his 
song  is  one  of  quiet  content,  of  a  happy  individ- 
ual, philosophically  and  joyfully  going  about  his 
day's  tasks  with  unhurried  steps,  of  a  sweet-faced 
woman  contentedly  knitting,  of  a  bird  leisurely 
gleaning  his  daily  food  and  pouring  out  his  soul 
in  thankfulness.  One  is  not  excited  by  his  song 
and  does  not  hang  on  each  phrase,  but  one  may 
enjoy  it  as  a  delightful  background  to  the  more 
individual  and  detached  efforts  of  other  birds. 

One  of  the  birds  that  occasionally  makes  flying 
visits  to  my  forest,  but  sings  not  in  the  ordinary 
meaning  of  the  word,  is  the  hummingbird. 
Chiefly  for  his  benefit  I  planted  trumpet-creepers 
about  my  house.     It  is  probable  that  the  long  bill 


THE  FOREST  189 

of  the  hummingbird  was  evolved  in  order  to 
reach  the  nectar  in  these  long-throated  flowers,  antl 
that  the  flower  was  evolved  so  that  the  huniiiiing- 
bird  or  insect  in  feeding  on  these  nectaries  should 
bear  pollen  from  one  flower  to  another  and  thus 
cross-fertilize  them.  Each  species  works  for  its 
own  good.     It  is  not  altruistic. 

The  hummingbirds  at  Ipswich  have,  however, 
taken  an  unfair  advantage  of  my  hospitality  in 
planting  these  vines  and  a  still  more  unfair  ad- 
vantage of  the  vines.  Instead  of  drinkin;^^  the 
nectar  through  their  slender  bills  inserted  into  the 
long  tubes  of  the  flowers,  they  have  grievously 
punctured  and  slit  the  tubes  and  thus  made  a 
short  cut  to  their  food.  Sometimes  I  am  unable 
to  find  a  perfect  flower — all  are  damaged.  Such 
actions  are,  as  far  as  I  know,  most  unusual.^  Is 
it  possible  that  an  over  efficient  hummingbird 
has  discovered  and  perhaps  taught  others  this 
reprehensible  practice  at  my  farm*?  This  ojn'ns 
up  a  wide  held  of  conjecture.     Let  us  suppose 

^I  have  recently  read  that  the  flowers  of  the  tree-daturas 
in  Ecuador  are  cross-fertilized  by  a  hummingbird  with  a  loni: 
bill,  but  that  shorter-billed  species  rupture  the  corolla  tubes 
from  without. 


190  BEACH  GRASS 

that  in  a  region  like  Central  America,  where  long- 
necked  flowers  and  hummingbirds  abound,  the 
latter  had  universally  adopted  this  short  cut  to 
the  food  supply.  The  result  would  be  disaster 
not  only  for  the  flowers  but  for  the  birds.  It  is 
evident  that  the  flowers  so  pierced  would  not  form 
any  more  honey  for  future  meals  and  would  ul- 
timately die.  They  would  not  be  crossed-ferti- 
lized,  and  even  if  they  matured  seed  these  might 
prove  infertile.  It  is  conceivable  that  in  this 
way  not  only  individuals  but  whole  species  of 
flowers  might  perish,  as  well  as  the  humming- 
bird life  dependent  upon  them. 

The  forest  as  a  robin  roost  is  worthy  of  a  few 
words.  I  had  been  hunting  for  a  name  for  my 
farm  and,  when  the  scientific  name  of  the  robin 
was  changed  from  Turdus  migratorius  to  Merula 
migratoria^  I  welcomed  the  euphonious  title  and 
called  my  farm  Merula  Farm.  I  have  kept  the 
name  although  the  powers  that  be  have  seen  fit 
to  change  the  name  of  the  robin  to  Planesticus, 
As  if  in  acknowledgment  of  my  choice,  the  robin 
has  been  so  good  as  to  select  my  forest  for  its 
roosting  place  at  night.     Hither  they  have  come 


THE  FOREST  191 

in  numbers  ever  since  the  forest  had  reached  a  sap- 
ling height,  and  have  spent  the  nights  troni  June 
to  October.  There  may  at  times  be  several  hun- 
dreds, but  I  have  never  counted  them.  When 
the  female  robin  is  brooding  the  young,  the  male 
and  his  bachelor  friends  resort  to  this  club-house 
at  night.  Later  they  are  joined  by  the  juvenals 
and,  when  all  the  broods  have  flown  the  nest, 
doubtless  by  the  females  also.  Before  dusk  the 
robins  come  from  all  sides,  frequently  alighting 
first  in  a  field  from  which  they  dive  from  below 
into  the  forest.  Some  of  them  alight  on  tall  out- 
lying trees  and  from  there  enter  the  forest  from 
above.  Sometimes,  especially  on  rainy  days,  the 
birds  drop  down  from  the  air  without  prelimi- 
nary preparation. 

On  a  pleasant  evening  in  September  I  con- 
cealed myself  in  the  lean-to  in  the  forest  to  watch 
from  the  inside  the  coming  of  the  robins  to  the 
roost.  At  a  quarter  after  five,  by  true  time, 
came  the  first  arrivals,  and  soon  the  ground  ami 
lower  branches  of  the  trees  were  alive  with  them. 
After  a  little  preening,  a  few  conversational  notes 
and   an   occasional    fight   with   sharp  cries   and 


192  BEACH  GRASS 

snapping  of  bills,  these  birds  ascended  to  the 
leafy  tree-tops  where  there  was  much  shifting  of 
positions  and  animated  conversation.  Occasion- 
ally a  pair  in  active  fight  would  come  to  the 
ground,  but  for  the  most  part  all  the  birds  after 
the  first,  including  the  newcomers  who  were  ar- 
riving in  numbers,  remained  in  the  tree-tops. 
The  din  began  to  diminish  at  half-past  six  and 
at  a  quarter  of  seven,  the  birds  were  sleeping 
so  soundly  that  they  did  not  arouse  when  I  left 
the  forest. 

Early  in  the  season  the  morning  chorus  from 
this  assembly  of  robins  is  full-throated  and  glo- 
rious. After  the  end  of  July  or  the  first  of  Aug- 
ust the  morning  awakening  is  destitute,  or  nearly 
destitute,  of  song.  Occasionally  a  single  robin 
makes  a  feeble  attempt  to  sing.  Song  is  replaced, 
however,  by  many  conversational  notes  and  a 
general  shifting  and  fluttering  about  through  the 
trees  as  if  a  gossipy  reception  was  being  held  be- 
fore the  birds  leave  for  the  day. 

The  morning  awakening,  early  in  September, 
begins  about  half-past  four  and  the  birds  are 
nearly  all  gone  by  five  o'clock.     Very  different 


THE  FOREST  193 

is  the  behavior  of  a  small  Hock  of  starlings  who 
also  roost  in  the  forest.  Not  a  sound  is  heard 
from  them  until  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  after 
the  departure  of  the  robins,  when,  with  a  prelim- 
inary chirp — although  I  do  not  always  hear  this 
— they  are  off  with  a  silken  swish  of  wings. 

At  night,  in  walking  in  the  darkness  to  my  cot, 
I  am  careful  not  to  hit  the  tree  trunks,  for,  if  I 
do,  I  am  apt  to  awaken  one  or  more  of  the  slum- 
bering robins,  and  the  commotion  caused  by  their 
alarm  notes  and  fluttering  of  wings  often  spreads 
in  all  directions  like  ripples  on  a  pond.  On  clear 
moonlight  nights  occasional  conversational  notes 
and  a  shifting  of  positions  are  not  uncommon 
among  the  birds. 

One  June  morning  at  daybreak,  I  was  aroused 
from  my  sleep  in  the  forest  by  a  great  outcry 
among  the  robins  who  were  flying  about  in  a  nerv- 
ous, alarmed  manner.  A  few  grackles,  red- 
wings, yellow  warblers  and  chickadees  added  to 
the  tumult.  Later  I  discovered  a  short  distance 
from  my  bed  the  feathers  of  a  robin  that  had 
been  eaten  by  a  hawk.  The  offender  in  this 
case   was   a   marsh   hawk,    who  had   varied   his 


194  BEACH  GRASS 

usual  diet  of  field-mice.  He  was  certainly  a 
criminal  among  his  race  for  I  have  evidence  that 
he  has  devoured  in  my  forest  not  only  several 
robins  but  a  grackle  and  a  green  heron.  I  have 
seen  him  harrying  the  forest  in  the  day  time  pur- 
sued by  most  of  its  inhabitants. 

At  times  barn  swallows  to  the  number  of  fifty 
or  more  have  roosted  in  the  forest  ajid  have 
caused  me  infinite  joy  by  their  early  song  of 
thanksgiving.  Few  birds  sing  so  charmingly  in 
chorus  as  does  the  barn  swallow. 

The  distant  calls  of  the  crow  and  its  varied 
conversational  notes,  some  of  which  have  a  very 
human  quality,  and  its  rattling,  crackling  "song'' 
already  referred  to,  are  pleasing  rural  sounds. 
But  I  have  determined  never  again  to  allow  this 
bird  to  nest  in  my  forest,  not  only  on  account  of 
the  danger  to  other  birds'  eggs  and  tender  nest- 
lings, but  also  because  the  sound  of  the  constant 
calling  of  the  young  for  food,  a  repeated  car  car 
car^  is  most  disturbing  to  one  who  is  alert  for 
bird  songs.  Nor  is  this  all,  for,  when  the  parent 
inserts  its  bill  and  head  into  the  capacious  maw 
of  the  youngster  in  order  to  feed  it,  this  same 


THE  FOREST  195 

youngster  makes  a  still  more  disagreeable  gurgling 
or  gargling  sound  which  is  but  the-  prchulc  to 
more  cars.  Young  crows  are  always  calling  for 
more. 

The  year  following  this  determination  to  ex- 
clude nesting  crows,  I  found  the  evidence  of  a 
crow  tragedy  in  numerous  scattered  feathers  of 
that  bird.  It  was  plain  that  a  hawk  or  perhaps 
a  great  horned  owl  had  relieved  me  of  the  job  for 
no  nesting  crow  intruded  that  year.  I  trust  that 
the  tradition  of  the  dangers  of  the  forest  to  crows 
will  persist. 

Another  bird  I  do  not  care  to  have  nest  in  my 
forest  is  that  enterprising  and  intelligent  bird, 
the  bronzed  grackle.  My  reasons  are  the  same 
as  in  the  case  of  the  crow.  He  is  destructive  to 
other  birds'  eggs  and  young,  and  peace-disturbing 
not  only  when  his  own  young  are  calling  for 
food,  but  even  when  he  himself  is  singing  in  his 
best  manner. 

Of  late  years  the  grackle  has  shown  his  enter- 
prise and  intelligence  by  taking  to  nesting  in 
cities  and  towns  and  about  houses.  Prior  t() 
1900  he  was  rarely  to  be  seen  in  the  Public  Gar- 


196  BEACH  GRASS 

den  in  Boston,  but  since  that  date  they  have 
nested  there  commonly.  Not  until  1907  did  they 
begin  to  build  nests  in  the  vines  of  my  house,  and 
it  soon  became  a  matter  of  choice  between  the  de- 
lightful robin  or  the  obnoxious  grackle  as  a 
housemate.  I  naturally  preferred  the  former. 
A  nest  of  a  grackle  over  a  back  porch  that  I  tore 
down  every  week-end  for  five  in  succession, 
was  rebuilt  and  an  egg  generally  laid  therein  by 
the  next  week-end.  I  then  found  that  if  the  eggs 
were  taken  and  the  nest  left,  the  birds  became 
suspicious  and  deserted.  Possibly  they  thought 
the  destruction  of  the  nest  was  due  to  the  ele- 
ments while  the  purloining  of  the  eggs  was  due  to 
an  enemy  who  would  return  for  more !  The  last 
method  of  inducing  the  grackles  to  change  their 
abode  was  approved  of  by  my  neighbors  and,  by 
the  aid  of  a  boy,  thirty-two  fresh  grackles'  eggs 
were  secured  from  the  vines  of  several  houses. 
They  made  an  excellent  omelet. 

In  the  last  chapter  of  "Sand  Dunes  and  Salt 
Marshes"  I  had  something  to  say  of  the  in- 
teresting habit  acquired  by  these  birds  of  picking 
a  bit  of  food  from  the  surface  of  water  like  a 


THE  FOREST  197 

gull,  sometimes  immersing  part  of  the  bod)  m 
the  act,  and  I  mentioned  that  I  had  seen  one  carry- 
off  what  appeared  to  be  a  small  silver}  tish. 
Since  that  time  I  have  seen  grackles  accomplish 
this  feat  many  times  in  the  Back-Bay  Basin  of 
the  Charles  River,  and,  with  the  help  of  a  police- 
man, I  have  secured  the  living  fish  that  they  had 
brought  to  land.  The  fish  were  three-spined 
sticklebacks.  I  am  sure  that  an  island  com- 
munity of  grackles  would  have  nothing  to  tear 
from  the  shrinking  of  their  terrestrial  food 
supply. 

One  spring  I  tied  pieces  of  white  rag  to  a  string 
and  stretched  it  across  my  garden  to  protect  the 
sprouting  corn  from  the  crows  and  it  was  effec- 
tual. The  grackles,  however,  not  only  refused  to 
be  scared  by  this  device,  but  one  individual 
actually  pulled  the  string  hither  and  thither  over 
the  ground  until  he  succeeded  in  detaching  a  piece 
of  rag.  With  this,  croaking  hoarsely  in  triumph, 
he  flew  to  his  nest.  Rather  than  lose  the  company 
of  this  interesting  bird  I  would  let  him  nest  on  my 
house  and  in  my  forest,  but  I  prefer  to  have  him 
nest  elsewhere. 


198  BEACH  GRASS 

Not  only  do  I  hear  birds  in  my  morning  wak- 
ing hours  but  I  see  them  from  my  cot.  Looking 
up  through  the  trees  early  one  spring  morning 
I  noticed  a  small  bird  fluttering  among  the  leaves 
of  the  topmost  branches  of  an  oak.  With  my 
glasses  I  saw  that  it  was  a  female  Maryland 
yellow-throat.  Presently  she  hopped  out  to  a 
bare  branch,  shook  herself  as  birds  do  after  a 
bath,  puffing  out  all  her  feathers  which  were  wet, 
and  I  realized  that  she  had  been  taking  a  dew- 
bath  in  the  tree-tops. 

It  is  possible  that  this  is  a  common  habit  among 
birds,  although  I  have  never  seen  it  described. 
The  rustling  and  fluttering  of  the  awakening 
robins  already  mentioned  may  be  the  accompany- 
ing sounds  of  dew-baths,  but  robins  are  such 
early  risers  that  there  is  too  little  light  to  spy 
out  their  matutinal  ways. 

Inquisitive  chickadees  are  apt  to  fly  about 
from  branch  to  branch  close  at  hand,  peering 
at  me  with  their  black  shining  eyes.  Catbirds 
chase  insects  over  the  dry  leaves,  twitching  the 
leaves  back  of  them  with  their  bills,  and  making 
the    noise    of    a    larger    animal.     Robins    start 


THE  FOREST  199 

fighting  in  the  tree-tops  out  of  my  sight  and  drop 
to  the  ground  within  my  vision.  Song  sparrows, 
Maryland  yellow-throats  and  yellow  warblers 
often  sing  to  me  within  sight  but  upon  my  ears 
I  am  chiefly  dependent  for  these  clinical  observa- 
tions. 

The  shy  mammal  rarely  reveals  himself  in  my 
waking  hours  in  the  forest.  I  have  heard  foxes 
barking  in  the  distance  and  have  seen  their  tracks 
in  the  snow  sometimes  close  to  the  lean-to,  and 
once,  from  the  house  I  saw  a  fox  trot  across  the 
field  in  early  morning  and  enter  the  forest.  Gray 
squirrels  chase  each  other  from  tree  to  tree  and 
scamper  over  the  dry  leaves,  cottontail  rabbits 
often  play  within  scope  of  my  vision,  I  have 
glimpses  of  white-footed  mice  and  I  have  some- 
times been  conscious  of  the  presence  of  a 
skunk. 

On  awakening  one  lovely  May  morning,  I  was 
surprised  to  see  a  cottontail  rabbit  bounding  into 
the  air  as  if  it  were  intent  on  climbing  a  tree. 
Then  I  discovered  there  were  two  and  that  they 
were  playing.  One  would  run  at  full  speed 
directly  at  the  other,  who,   as  if  discharged  by 


200  BEACH  GRASS 

springs,  bounced  straight  up  into  the  air  a  couple 
of  feet  or  so  and  his  playmate  passed  underneath. 
The  merry  pair  continued  to  practice  this  cotton- 
tail form  of  leap-frog  for  several  minutes. 

I  once  saw  a  deer  run  out  of  the  forest  in  the 
day  time.  Deer  have  done  grievous  injury  to  the 
bark  of  a  locust  tree,  and  in  the  early  days  of  the 
forest  I  had  to  tie  rags  to  a  couple  of  white  cedars 
to  prevent  their  entire  consumption  by  deer.  I 
have  not  caught  a  weasel  asleep,  neither  have  I 
seen  one  from  my  cot,  but  on  one  occasion  on  the 
outskirts  of  the  forest  I  came  across  a  weasel 
that  sat  up  on  end  with  its  little  forepaws  hang- 
ing down,  and  impudently  watched  me  from  a 
distance  of  fifteen  feet.  At  times  it  stood  erect 
on  its  hind  feet,  at  times  it  squatted  on  its 
haunches.  It;  was  a  long  drawn  out  animal, 
brown  above,  white  below,  tinged  with  creamy 
yellow;  the  end  of  its  tail  was  black;  its  ears 
were  large  and  its  black  beedy  eyes  were  fixed 
upon  me.  I  stood  motionless  and  whistled  to 
it  softly.  After  a  few  minutes  scrutiny  it 
dropped  to  all  fours  and  bounded  off  like  a 
dachshund  hobby-horse,  but  returned  in   a  mo- 


THE  FOREST  201 

ment  to  again  watch  the  strange  whistling  crea- 
ture. 

There  are  many  other  sounds  than  those  al- 
ready detailed  that  are  interesting  to  one  "who 
is  quick  to  read  the  voices  of  the  night," 
such  as  the  wide  range  of  insect  sounds.  After 
the  middle  of  August  the  snowy  tree-cricket  sings 
by  rubbing  his  wing-covers  together  every  night 
until  his  activities  are  stilled  by  the  cold  of 
autumn.  This  point  is  reached  when  the  ther- 
mometer sinks  to  about  fifty  degrees.  It  is  a 
regular  pulsing,  throbbing  song  in  which  two  or 
more  insects  may  unite  in  unison.  Thoreau 
refers  to  it  as  "the  slumbrous  breathing  of  crickets 
throughout  the  night."  The  hotter  the  night, 
the  quicker  the  repetition  of  the  notes,  the  colder, 
the  slower.  By  counting  the  notes  in  a  (juarter 
of  a  minute  and  adding  thirty-nine,  one  obtains 
the  number  of  degrees  of  temperature  Fahrenheit, 
with  surprising  accuracy.  This  may  be  called  a 
cricket  thermometer. 

The  snowy  tree-cricket,  whose  song  I  have  just 
described,  is  a  very  different  looking  insect  from 
the  well-known  field-cricket,  a  first  cousin  oi  the 


202  BEACH  GRASS 

European  species,  the  familiar  ''cricket  on  the 
hearth."  The  field-cricket  is  dark  brown  or 
black,  stout  and  robust  in  appearance  and  easily 
discovered.  The  snowy  tree-cricket  is  pale 
greenish  white  in  color,  slender  and  delicately 
formed.  It  is  practically  never  seen  except  by 
those  who  make  diligent  search,  as  it  secretes  it- 
self in  bushes  and  vines,  and  is  apt  to  cease 
singing  if  one  intrudes  too  closely  on  its 
haunts. 

On  a  November  night  the  wind  switched 
around  from  the  south  to  the  northeast,  blew  hard 
and  brought  rain.  I  was  awakened  by  the  rain 
in  my  face  and  the  groaning  of  a  tree  trunk 
rubbing  against  the  roof  of  the  lean-to.  The 
sound  was  so  human  that  I  reached  out  in  the 
darkness  to  discover  if  by  any  chance  some  one 
had  come  to  the  other  bed  beside  me. 

The  soft  soughing  of  the  wind  in  the  pines,  the 
rustling  of  the  leaves  of  the  hard  woods  as  their 
branches  sway  in  the  breeze,  or  the  roaring  of  a 
gale  through  the  forest  are  all  sounds  that  give 
pleasure.  Especially  do  I  enjoy  the  sound  of  the 
surf  breaking  on  the  beach  when  an  easterly  wind 


THE  FORESr  203 

brings  it  to  my  ears,  or  when  it  roars  loudl\   in 
a  calm  night  after  a  storm. 

Even  in  the  absence  of  beasts  or  birds,  the  view 
from  my  cot  in  the  lean-to  is  most  satisfying: — 
the  brown  forest  floor,  the  clustering  tree  trunks, 
the  green  canopy  above  and  all  around  dotted  here 
and  there  with  glimpses  of  sky — a  very  pleasant 
and  well  arranged  bed  chamber.  In  front  of  the 
lean-to,  the  ground  slopes  rapidly  down,  and  here 
is  left  a  space  with  trees  on  either  side.  Throu;jh 
this  vista  I  used  to  be  able  to  look  out  on  the 
broad  marshes  and  winding  creeks,  the  wooded 
islands  and  the  distant  pine-covered  hills,  (irad- 
ually  the  tree  growth  narrowed  the  view  and,  al- 
though I  lopped  oif  branches  from  time  to  time, 
the  jungle  conquered  in  the  end  and  now  my 
view,  even  in  this  direction,  is  bounded  by  waving 
foliage. 

Partly  to  avoid  disturbing  the  beasts  and  birds 
and  partly  for  the  sake  of  the  mild  adventure, 
I  take  no  light  at  night  to  guide  me  to  the  lean-to. 
The  forest  path  is  a  sinuous  one,  some  seventy 
paces  long,  and  winds  about  among  the  trees. 
On  moonlight  nights  the  way  is  clear,  but  there 


204  BEACH  GRASS 

are  many  nights  when  I  am  engulfed  in  Stygian 
darkness  the  moment  I  enter  the  forest.  Partly 
by  the  feel  of  the  well  trodden  path  on  the  fallen 
leaves  and  pine  needles,  and  partly  by  my 
familiarity  with  the  individual  trees  and  knowl- 
edge of  all  the  twists  and  turns  of  the  path,  I 
can  generally  reach  my  goal.  Sometimes  I  stray 
and  am  temporarily  lost.  My  attitude  on  the 
walk  is  that  of  a  suppliant,  with  hands  extended 
and  clasped  lest  any  sapling  steal  through  my 
guard  and  smite  me  in  the  face.  For  the  time 
being  I  am  a  blind  man  and  it  matters  not 
whether  my  eyes  are  shut  or  open. 

A  rain  continues  in  the  forest  for  several  hours 
after  the  storm  has  ceased  outside.  The  leaves 
and  branches  drip  steadily  in  the  calm  that  fol- 
lows a  storm,  and  the  rain  pours  down  in  showers 
when  gusts  of  wind  shake  the  trees.  Just  as 
snow  is  conserved  in  the  forest  and  slowly  melts 
and  enriches  the  ground,  so  is  the  volume  of  the 
rain  spread  over  a  longer  period  and  does  not  rush 
down  the  hillsides  in  a  career  of  waste  and 
destruction.  In  winter,  when  the  fields  are  here 
bare  of  snow,  there  piled  in  great  drifts,  depend- 


THE  FORESr  205 


"•n- 


ent  on  the  vargaries  of  the  wind  and  the  irre-u 
larities  of  the  shelter,  my  forest  is  evenly  car- 
peted and  built  up  with  snow.  When  the  sprin;^ 
warmth  and  showers  leave  the  fields  a  {)atch- 
work  of  sodden  and  gullied  earth  and  snowdrifts, 
and  finally  remove  all  traces  of  whiteness,  the 
forest  still  retains  its  slowly  melting  blanket. 
This  at  last  sinks  into  the  ground  without  a  trace. 
One  of  the  pleasurable  sounds  in  Nature  is 
that  of  falling  rain.  In  a  house  one  ma}'  be 
disturbed  lest  it  rain  in  the  windows  and  injure 
the  ceilings,  and,  in  the  city,  the  prospect  out- 
side is  far  from  inspiring.  If,  however,  one 
associates  with  the  sound  of  falling  rain  the  smell 
of  the  earth  and  the  crops  greedy  for  the  refresh- 
ing draught,  the  associated  cooling  of  the  air  in 
heated  days,  and  all  the  glorious  and  awe-in- 
spiring manifestations  of  a  storm,  the  sound  be- 
comes one  of  the  pleasurable  sounds  of  nature. 
To  lie  out  in  a  lean-to  and  listen  to  the  wind  sing- 
ing in  the  branches,  to  hear  the  rain  on  the  root 
and  in  the  trees,  to  feel  now  and  then  a  s{)ra}  ot 
moisture  on  the  cheek  is  always  an  interesting 
experience. 


2o6  BEACH  GRASS 

What  pleasant  memories  does  not  the  smell 
of  salt  marshes  bring  to  mind!     It  is  a  char- 
acteristic odor,  a  good  salty,  marshy  smell,  and  it 
is  concentrated  in  all  its  agreeable  qualities  in  a 
rick  of  damp  salt  hay.     A  summer's  rain  bring 
it  up  from  the  marshes  to  my  lean-to  in  the  forest 
with  especial  force.     Why  this  should  be  so  I 
do  not  know.     Its  full  flavor  is  to  be  found  on 
the  borders  of  the  creeks,  where  one  walks  in  the 
thatch  grass  with  loud  crackling  sounds  at  each 
tread  as  the  great  grass  stalks  snap  under  foot. 
The  smell  of  the  flats  at  low  tide  is  good  but  it 
lacks  the  flavor  of  salt  hay.     Flats  have  an  evil 
reputation,  as  they  are  associated  in  the  mind  with 
the  flats  about  the  harbors  of  great  cities,  contam- 
inated with  sewage  and  with  the  waste  of  gas  fac- 
tories.    Flats  in  primitive  regions,  washed  clean 
twice  in  twenty-four  hours  by  the  clear  green  sea 
water  are  as  different  from  these  as  white  is  from 
black. 

The  sweet  odors  that  float  through  the  four 
open  sides  of  my  lean-to  in  the  forest  are  always 
a  delight.  The  delicate  and  subtle  odors  of 
early   spring,    the   smell    of   the   freshly   turned 


THE  FOREST  207 

soil  wafted  from  yonder  field,  the  perfume 
of  the  apple  blossom,  which  sometimes  per- 
vades the  whole  country-side,  the  odors  of 
the  old  hawthorne  hedge  and  of  the  wild 
cherries  at  the  boundary  stone  walls,  the 
superlatively  sweet  odor  of  the  wild  grape,  of 
the  wild  rose  and  of  the  new-mown  hay,  the 
aromatic  smell  of  pine  and  spruce  and  hr,  as 
well  as  the  good  smell  of  the  salt  marsh,  all  con- 
tribute to  the  pleasures  of  sense  and  contempla- 
tion of  one  who  makes  this  forest  his  bed  cham- 
ber. One  often  strains  his  nose  and  his  memory 
to  differentiate  these  odors. 

On  the  floor  of  a  natural  forest  an  interest- 
ing assembly  of  wild  flowers  is  to  be  found. 
These  forest-loving  species  are  of  course  absent 
where  a  forest  is  rudely  thrust  by  man  into  a 
mowing-field,  although,  in  time,  by  the  agency 
of  wind  and  birds  and  beasts,  it  would  un- 
doubtedly spring  up.  I  have  already  alluded  to 
my  introduction  of  dog's-tooth  violets,  blood- 
root,  ferns  and  other  plants,  and  it  is  my  ambi- 
tion, as  opportunity  favors,  to  make  here  a  collec- 
tion of  forest-loving  species  that  will  add  greatly 


2o8  BEACH  GFIASS 

to  the  beauty  and  interest  of  my  forest,  which 
will  be  as  an  open  book.  What  better  way  to 
learn  the  ferns,  for  example,  than  by  collecting 
and  introducing  as  many  different  kinds  as  possi- 
ble and  watching  them  as  they  become  established. 
Fortunately  the  character  of  the  ground  varies 
from  dry  gravel  to  clay  subsoil,  and  to  spring}^ 
ground  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  near  the  salt  marsh. 
I  already  have  a  few  lady's  slippers  and  rattle- 
snake plantains  in  my  forest.  The  possibility  of 
a  considerable  collection  of  wild  flowers  there  as 
well  as  of  ferns  is  an  inspiring  thought. 

An  unexpected  source  of  profit  and  pleasure 
ensued  from  the  forest.  When  I  planted  and 
tenderly  brooded  over  the  delicate  seedlings  on 
the  hillside,  the  use  of  an  axe  on  them  was  far 
from  my  thoughts.  Yet  a  time  came  when  an 
axe  was  very  necessary.  I  had  planted  them  near 
together  for  protection  from  the  rough  winds. 
Many  of  them  were  nurses,  and  it  is  well  to  elim- 
inate nurses  when  the  child  outgrows  the  apron- 
strings.  Elms  and  ashes  had  been  sprinkled  in 
liberally,  but,  although  I  was  glad  to  grow  a 
thicket  for  birds,  I  found  these  nurses  were  push- 


THE  FOREST  209 

ing  and  shading  some  of  my  rarer  trees  and  that 
they  would  eventually  kill  them.  Hence  the 
need  of  the  axe,  although  it  required  a  steeling 
of  the  heart  to  destroy  what  I  had  nurtured  from 
their  infancy.  I  could  still  keep  a  thicket  for 
birds  even  with  liberal  cutting  and  my  thicket 
would  contain  a  greater  variety  of  trees. 

The  wielding  of  the  axe  as  an  exercise  has 
many  advantages.  Personally  I  prefer  it  to  the 
wielding  of  a  golf  club.  It  is  at  its  best  in  mid- 
winter when  golf  is  often  impossible.  It  re- 
quires much  skill  and  quickness  of  eye.  My 
first  stumps  looked  like  beaver  stumps.  The 
felling  of  the  tree  in  the  desired  direction,  the 
loping  off  of  the  limbs,  the  cutting  up  of  the  large 
part  of  the  trunk  into  fireplace  wood,  and  of  the 
small  part  into  stove  wood,  the  pushing  of  the 
load  in  a  wheelbarrow  up  to  the  house  or  the 
dragging  it  on  a  sled  on  the  snow,  the  gathering 
and  burning  of  the  brush — all  of  these  in  the 
cold  sparkling  days  of  autumn  and  winter  are 
joys  that  make  life  worth  living  and  keep  a  man 
in  good  physical  condition.  There  is  no  better 
exercise. 


210  BEACH  GRASS 

There  were  no  towering  forest  trees  to  be  cut 
down  in  my  youthful  forest,  and,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  few  old  wild  cherry  trees  on  my  bound- 
ary walls  that  I  cut  down  to  make  room  for  other 
trees,  I  guarded  my  old  trees  most  zealously. 
Wind  and  storm,  however,  played  havoc  with  a 
few  of  these  veterans  and  gave  me  opportunities 
to  cut  up  the  large  boles  with  the  help  of  a  friend 
and  a  two  handled  saw,  and  to  split  the  pieces 
with  iron  wedges  and  a  sledge  hammer.  Sawing 
is  monotonous  work,  and  unless  the  trunk  or 
limb  is  too  large  the  axe  is  to  be  preferred  even 
if  it  take  longer  and  be  more  wasteful.  The 
saw  requires  no  skill  in  its  use,  each  drawing  back 
and  forth  is  the  same  as  the  one  preceding.  Each 
stroke  of  the  axe,  on  the  other  hand,  must  be  in- 
telligently placed  to  get  the  best  results.  Two 
in  succession  are  rarely  the  same.  One  stroke 
cuts  diagonally,  another  cuts  straight  across  the 
grain;  the  fragrant  white  chips  fly  the  steel  rings 
out.  Swinging  a  heavy  sledge  hammer  is  also 
splendid  exercise.  A  splitting  and  tearing  of  the 
wood  occurs,  clean  fresh  surfaces  open  up  and 
a  sweet  smell  issues  forth.     During  the  Great 


THE  FOREST 


211 


War  when  it  was  a  patriotic  duty  to  conserve  coal 
for  our  allies,  I  was  able  to  keep  the  house  sup- 
plied with  wood. 

Every  farm  should  have  a  wood-lot,  and  if  it 
does  not  possess  one,  let  not  the  owner  delay  to 
plant  it.  Rightly  used  it  is  a  source  of  much 
pleasure  and  profit. 

"When  ye  hae  naething  else  to  do, 

ye  may  be  aye  sticking  in  a  tree.     It  "will 

he  growing  when  ye' re  sleeping,'' 


List  of  Trees 

Larch 

White  Pine 
Pitch  Pine 
Banksian  Pine 
Red  Pine 
Black   Spruce 
Red  Spruce 
White  Spruce" 
Hemlock 
Balsam  Fir 


IN  Forest  and  Adjoining 
Land 

Arbor  vitae 
White  Cedar 
Red  Cedar 
Aspen  poplar 
White  Willow 
Butternut 
Black  Walnut 
Bitternut  Hickory 
Hop  Hornbeam 
Hornbeam 


212  BEACH 

Sweet  Birch 

Yellow  Birch 

White  or  Gray  Birch 

Canoe  Birch 

Beech 

Chestnut 

White  Oak 

Bur  Oak 

Swamp  White  Oak 

Chestnut  Oak 

Red  Oak 

Scarlet  Oak 

American  Elm 

Hackberry 

Tulip   Tree 

Sassafras 

Buttonwood 

Mountain  Ash 


GRASS 

Wild  Red  Cherry 

Chokecherry 

Wild  Black  Cherry 

Locust 

Clammy  Locust 

Red  Maple 

White  Maple 

Sugar  Maple 

Mountain  Maple 

Striped  Maple 

Ash-leaved  Maple 

Linden 

Flowering  Dogwood 

Tupelo 

Red  Ash 

White  Ash 

Green  Ash 


Bushes  and  Vines 


Shadbush 
Thorn 

Staghorn  Sumach 
Smooth  Sumach 


Red  Osier 
Hobble-bush 
Arrow-wood  Viburnum 
Maple-leaf  Viburnum 


Sweet  Viburnum 

Wythe-rod  Viburnum 

Hazel 

Barberry 

Beach  Plum 

Bayberry 

Winterberry 

Alder 

Witch  Hazel 

Elder 

Rhodora 

Meadowsweet 

Hardback 


THE  FOREST 

High  Blackberry 
Wild  Rose 
Wild  Gooseberry 
Low  Juniper 
Yew 

Poison  Ivy 
Fox  Grape 
Frost  Grape 
Bitter-Sweet 
Groundnut 
Trumpet  Creeper 
Woodbine 


213 


CHAPTER  IX 

Swallows  at  Work  and  Play 

'Who   but   the  swallow    triumphs   now   alone? 
The  canopy  of  heav'n  is  all  her  own 
Her  youthful  offspring  to  their  haunts  repair^ 
And  glide  along  in  glades  and  skim  the  air^ 
And  dip  for  insects  in  the  purling  springs. 
And  stoop  on  rivers  to  refresh  their  wings'' 

— Dry  den 


B 


OTH  the  tree  swallow  and  barn  swallow 
have  modified  their  nesting  habits  since 
the  arrival  of  the  white  man  in  America. 
The  tree  swallow  formerly  built  its  nest  in  trees 
hollowed  by  decay  or  in  woodpeckers'  nesting 
holes.  This  habit  is  still  continued  wherever 
suitable  holes  are  to  be  found,  even  in  such  a 
thickly  populated  region  as  Essex  County,  but 
the  majority  of  the  nests  that  come  to  our  at- 
tention are  built  in  boxes  or  houses  of  various 
designs  that  are  erected  for  their  especial  con- 
venience. 

214 


AT  WORK  AND  PLAY  215 

On  my  twelve  acre  farm  at  Ipswich  I  have 
had  fifteen  pairs  building  in  boxes  in  one  season. 
One  of  these  boxes,  which  has  been  occupied  each 
year  for  over  twenty  years,  violates  most  of  the 
rules  laid  down  in  modern  books  for  the  building 
of  bird-houses.  It  is  advised,  and  with  good 
reason,  that  paint  should  not  be  used,  that  the 
opening  should  be  no  larger  than  the  bird's  body, 
that  it  should  be  circular,  several  inches  above 
the  bottom  of  the  box  and  that  the  nesting  mate- 
rial be  removed  at  the  end  of  every  season.  Now 
this  favored  house  of  mine  is  painted  red  with 
black  windows  and  green  blinds,  has  a  large  rec- 
tangular opening  on  a  level  with  the  floor,  and, 
being  on  the  top  of  a  pole,  is  never  cleaned  out. 
This  only  goes  to  show  that  the  tree  swallow  is 
an  adaptive  bird.  My  experience  demonstrates 
that  square  wooden  boxes  are  just  as  popular  as 
the  most  carefully  made  and  expensive  von 
Berlepsch  boxes,  which  may  be  heresy. 

The  barn  swallow  formerly  built  its  mud  and 
straw  nests  in  rocky  caves.  Swallow  Cave  at 
Nahant  is  an  instance,  but  as  far  as  I  know  no 
barn  swallow  has  been  found  within  fifty  years 


2i6  BEACH  GRASS 

building  in  a  natural  cave  in  Essex  County.  It 
nests  in  artificial  caves  made  by  the  white  man, 
in  out-buildings  and,  above  all,  in  barns. 

What  is  more  charming  than  an  ancient  barn 
filled  with  the  sweet  scent  of  hay  and  the  song  of 
the  barn  swallows!  The  doors  stand  open,  the 
windows  have  many  gaps  in  their  frames. 
Through  these  inviting  openings  the  swallows  are 
constantly  gliding.  I  have  known  many  such 
barns  but  of  one  that  I  know  intimately  at  Ipswich 
I  would  speak  here.  Not  only  did  barn  swallows 
nest  in  large  numbers  in  its  cavernous  interior  but 
a  large  colony  of  eave  swallows  built  their  retort- 
shaped  nests  under  its  liberal  eaves.  I  once 
counted  on  the  beams  and  rafters  of  this  barn 
fifty-five  barn  swallows'  nests.  These  are  made 
of  globules  of  gray  mud  brought  by  the  birds  in 
their  bills,  firmly  plastered  together  and  mixed 
with  straw.  They  are  lined  with  hay  and 
feathers.  In  late  June  and  in  July  one  may  lie 
in  the  fragrant  hay  and  listen  to  a  concert  of 
great  beauty  and  watch  a  scene  constantly  chang- 
ing and  full  of  interest.  The  old  birds  are  ever 
flying  in  and  out,  skimming  close  to  the  floor  or 


AT  WORK  AND  PLAY  217 

just  missing  the  top  of  the  door  or  window  frame, 
skillfully  dodging  any  human  being  that  may  be 
standing  in  the  doorway  and  never  pausing  for 
an  instant  in  the  swiftness  of  their  flight.  They 
cling  to  the  old  beams  or  to  the  edge  of  the  nest 
where  they  are  opposed  by  a  row  of  four  or  five 
pinkish  yellow  mouths  which  form  conspicuous 
targets  for  the  discharge  of  mouthfuls  of  insects. 
All  the  young  twitter  excitedly,  but  all  those 
which  are  unfed  as  well  as  the  lucky  one  or  two 
that  are  fed,  quickly  subside  as  soon  as  the  parent 
goes,  and  the  yellow  commisures  of  their  mouths 
alone  are  seen  in  the  twilight  of  the  rafters. 
Sometimes  both  parents  arrive  with  food  at  the 
nest  at  the  same  time  and  the  consequent  excite- 
ment is  doubled. 

The  song  of  the  barn  swallow  is  rarely  men- 
tioned in  the  books.  One  reads  of  their  twitter- 
ing calls  from  the  air  or  the  barn  roof.  To  my 
mind  the  barn  swallow  is  one  of  our  most  de- 
lightful singers.  His  song  is  always  full  of 
charm,  soft  and  lovely,  devoid  of  all  roughness. 
Besides  delivering  an  individual  song,  he  delights 
in  singing  in  chorus.     It  is  a  sweet  and  cheerful 


2i8  BEACH  GRASS 

song  full  of  little  trills  and  joyful  bubbles  of 
music,  at  times  clear  and  sparkling,  at  times  ooz- 
ing and  rubbery.  Like  the  music  of  a  brook  it 
flows  on  indefinitely.  At  times  the  old  barn  is 
permeated  with  its  melody.  Swallows  on  every 
rafter  and  in  every  cranny  and  coursing  through 
the  air  seem  filled  with  the  most  intense  joy  of 
the  music.  Then  all  is  silent  except  for  the  twit- 
tering of  the  young;  anon  the  song  bursts  forth 
again  and  swells  into  a  louder  chorus  and  dwin- 
dles into  a  soft,  low  air  as  if  a  master  leader  were 
swinging  his  baton. 

Not  only  do  the  swallows  sing  thus  in  the 
barns,  but  as  they  course  the  fields  or  skim  the 
ponds,  and  perhaps  best  of  all  when  a  group  of 
them  welcome  the  morning  sun  from  a  roofside. 
Our  barn  swallow  is  an  accomplished  singer,  and, 
as  a  proof  that  he  delights  in  his  own  song,  he 
does  not  limit  it  to  the  courtship  season  but  con- 
tinues it  through  the  arduous  time  of  the  rearing 
of  the  young  and  even  after  the  young  have  left 
the  nest  and  are  abroad.  From  the  first  day  of 
his  arrival  in  late  April  till  the  end  of  August 
and  even  into  September  this  charming  bird  sings. 


AT  WORK  AND  PLAY  219 

Very  few  birds  have  such  a  long  and  continuous 
song  season. 

The  tree  swallow  is  far  inferior  in  voice  to 
his  cousin  the  barn  swallow.  In  fact,  it  is  the 
common  belief  that  he  has  no  song,  and  there 
would  be  full  excuse  for  the  belief.  Such,  how- 
ever, is  not  the  fact.  He  is  our  earliest  bird  to 
regularly  welcome  the  dawn  by  song,  even  an- 
ticipating the  robin.  The  tree  swallows'  song, 
for  such  it  must  be  called,  is  a  rather  monotonous 
and  rather  labored  repetition  of  rolling  or  war- 
bling notes.  Every  third  or  fourth  is  sharper  and 
shorter,  and  at  times  the  notes  may  possibly  be 
called  melodious.  Its  association,  however,  makes 
it  a  pleasing  song  especially  when  the  notes 
shower  down  from  a  multitude  of  throats  in  the 
dim  light  of  dawn. 

This  last  season  a  pair  of  tree  swallows  reared 
a  brood  of  young  in  a  nesting  box  on  the  outside 
of  a  porch  on  my  Ipswich  house,  and  a  pair  of 
barn  swallows  nested  and  successfully  reared 
five  young  on  top  of  a  pillar  under  the  same  porch, 
so  that  I  was  able  to  observe  and  compare  the 
habits  of  these  two  species.     I  have  no  intention 


220  BEACH  GRASS 

of  giving  statistics  as  to  the  number  of  times  the 
young  were  fed  per  hour,  or  to  calculate  the 
number  of  insects  devoured — indeed  I  made  no 
notes  of  these  important  but  rather  dull  facts — 
but  I  would  call  attention  to  two  very  fundamen- 
tal differences  in  the  nesting  habits  of  two  such 
similar  birds. 

When  the  broods  were  young,  the  parents  of 
both  species  diligently  removed  the  white  sacs  of 
dejecta  and  dropped  them  at  a  distance,  as  is  the 
common  habit  of  passerine  birds.  The  habit  was 
continued  during  the  entire  residence  of  the 
young  tree  swallows  in  their  nest,  but  only  while 
the  barn  swallows  were  small.  When  the  latter 
had  attained  nearly  adult  stature  and  for  several 
days  before  they  flew,  they  discharged  their  de- 
jecta over  the  edge  of  the  nest,  whitening  the 
piazza  floor  below,  but  leaving  the  nest  unsoiled. 
In  both  cases  the  nest  sanitation  was  perfect. 

The  second  difference  in  habit  between  the 
two  species  is  of  considerable  interest.  The  tree 
swallow  brood  once  launched  into  the  world 
was  lost.  As  far  as  I  know  it  did  not  again  oc- 
cupy its  birthplace  that  season.     Not  so  the  barn 


AT  WORK  AND  PLAY  221 

swallow.  For  several  days  before  they  left  the 
nest  the  five  young  birds  seemed  fully  grown  and 
fully  feathered.  The  chief  difference  between 
them  and  their  parents  was  the  fact  that  they 
lacked  the  long  outer  feathers  of  the  tail.  The 
five  heads  and  necks  with  their  neat  brown  throat- 
bibs  presented  a  charming  appearance,  extending 
in  a  row  over  the  edge  of  the  nest.  Their  shin- 
ing black  eyes  looked  at  me  unafraid.  When  a 
parent  appeared,  all  their  yellow  mouths  flew 
open  in  eager  expectancy  and  all  twittered  be- 
seechingly. Usually  only  one,  sometimes  two, 
were  rewarded  by  a  mouthful  of  insect  food.  A 
day  arrived  when  the  parents  flew  under  the  porch 
back  and  forth  close  to  the  nest  as  if  to  entice 
the  young  birds,  but  not  feeding  them.  Several 
of  their  friends  joined  them,  for  at  times  there 
were  four  or  even  five  birds  flying  before  the 
gallery  of  the  young. 

The  next  day  there  were  only  three  birds  in  the 
nest  after  the  early  morning,  but  the  two  wan- 
derers returned  at  sunset.  On  the  following  day 
all  five  flew  off  at  eight  in  the  morning.  At  times 
they  rested  in  trees  and  were  fed  by  the  parents, 


222  BEACH  GRASS 

sometimes  they  were  fed  in  mid-air,  but  doubt- 
less they  did  some  insect  catching  on  their  own 
hook.  At  six  o'clock  they  were  all  back  in  the 
nest  and  being  fed  by  the  parents.  For  four  days 
more  this  was  repeated.  The  young  left  in  the 
morning  but  returned  to  the  nest  at  night,  gen- 
erally going  and  coming  together.  On  the  fifth 
night  only  two  returned  and  after  that  they  oc- 
cupied the  nest  no  more.  I  imagined  I  saw  the 
family  party  several  times,  however,  as  a  group 
of  six  or  seven  barn  swallows  flew  past,  and  oc- 
casionally they  would  fly  around  under  the  porch, 
the  adults  pouring  forth  their  souls  in  song.  This 
use  of  the  nest  by  the  young  as  a  sleeping  place 
is  interesting.  Most  birds  when  they  fly  the 
nest  do  not  return. 

In  "Sand  Dunes  and  Salt  Marshes"  I  de- 
scribed in  some  detail  the  roosting  and  migration 
habits  of  our  swallows.  Here  I  will  say  some- 
thing of  their  play.  Swallows  are  social  birds. 
Not  only  does  each  associate  with  its  own  species, 
but  all  four  species,  the  barn,  tree,  eave,  and  bank 
swallows  are  often  found  in  the  same  assembly, 
gathered  together  for  roosting,  migrating,  feeding 


AT  WORK  AND  PLAY  223 

or  play.  Their  enjoyment  in  their  perfect  mas- 
tery of  the  air  is  very  evident.  They  fly  not 
only  for  the  purpose  of  getting  food  but  for  the 
pleasure  of  flying,  chasing  each  other  back  and 
forth,  skimming  trees  and  buildings  and  even 
human  beings  by  hairs'  breaths.  One  of  the  best 
places  to  watch  this  social  sport  of  flying  is  at  a 
pond.  By  far  the  majority  of  the  birds  with  us 
are  tree  swallows  but  a  moderate  number  of  barn 
swallows  and  a  few  eave  and  bank  swallows  may 
be  seen.  One  September  day  at  sunset  a  flock  of 
many  hundreds  if  not  thousands  of  these  birds 
were  alighted  on  the  bushes,  fence  rails  and  wires 
near  the  waters  of  Sagamore  Pond.  They  arose 
with  the  roar  of  many  wings,  and,  turning  first 
their  dark  then  their  white  surfaces  to  the  ob- 
server, swirled  about  in  irregular  groups.  Then 
they  all  flew  close  to  the  water,  and  every  now  and 
then  hurled  themselves  at  it  so  that  the  quiet  sur- 
face of  the  pond  was  pitted  with  splashes  as  from 
a  bombardment.  Their  heads,  backs  and  wings 
were  soused  in  the  water,  which  they  shook  off  in 
showers  as  they  arose.  At  times  they  would  dip 
lightly  several  times  in  succession.     At  last  they 


224  BEACH  GRASS 

all  rose  high  in  the  air  and  turned  in  the  direc- 
tion of  their  night  roost,  but  the  temptation  to 
stay  up  a  little  longer  and  renew  their  play  and 
the  fun  of  the  bath  was  too  great  and  they  re- 
turned and  again  bombarded  the  water.  Finally, 
when  the  whole  sky  was  suffused  with  an  orange 
glow,  deepening  to  crimson,  they  tore  them- 
selves away  from  their  sport,  rose  to  a  great 
height  and  in  open  ranks  made  off  directly  for 
their  roost  in  the  dunes. 

On  a  dull  May  day  with  an  easterly  gale 
bringing  in  sea  mist.  Sagamore  Pond  was  covered 
with  swallows — all  four  species,  tree,  barn,  eave 
and  bank  in  order  of  abundance.  As  one  stood 
on  the  shore  and  looked  out  on  the  bewildering 
throng,  one  could  recognize  the  calls  of  all  the 
species.  They  were  all  fiying  within  a  foot  of 
the  water  into  the  teeth  of  the  gale,  occasion- 
ally setting  their  wings  and  soaring  and  occasion- 
ally dipping  in  the  water  below.  Arrived  at  the 
easterly  shore  of  the  pond,  they  ascended  a  few 
yards,  turned  and  glided  down  wind  with  great 
rapidity,  only  to  turn  again  and  begin  their  slow 
progress  back.     It  reminded  one  of  a  lot  of  chil- 


AT  WORK  AND  PLAY  225 

dren  sliding  down  hill  and  laboriously  dragging 
their  sleds  back  again. 

On  a  June  morning  I  came  upon  a  flock  of 
fifty  barn  swallows  sitting  on  a  wire  fence,  each 
singing  his  song  of  gladness.  In  an  instant  all 
were  fluttering  head  to  the  wind  over  the  butter- 
cups and  daisies;  then  all  alighted  in  the  grass 
and  dabbed  at  insects.  The  morning  was  so  cold 
that  the  insects  were  not  on  the  wing,  but 
quiet  and  dormant. 

On  another  cold  morning  in  September  I  en- 
tered a  meadow  white  with  Queen  Anne's  lace 
and  spotted  with  fluttering,  twittering  tree  swal- 
lows, a  half  thousand  of  them  at  a  moderate  es- 
timate. They  were  flying  down  to  leeward  and 
slowly  flying  back  through  the  grass  picking  up 
insects  as  they  went.  Occasionally  they  became 
entangled  in  the  grass  and  flowers  and  struggled 
to  extricate  themselves.  The  gentle  snap,  snap 
of  their  bills  could  be  heard  as  they  flew  within 
a  few  feet  or  even  inches  of  me. 

Tree  swallows  and  barn  swallows  are  both 
very  fearless  of  man,  or  perhaps  one  should  say 
trustful  and  confiding.     On  a  rainy  or  cold  day 


226  BEACH  GRASS 

when  insects  are  sluggish,  if  one  walks  through  a 
meadow  these  delightful  birds  will  circle  close  by 
to  seize  the  insects  put  up  from  the  grass. 

It  is  probable  that  both  the  spirit  of  play  and 
the  pursuit  of  insects  are  combined  in  these  dis- 
plays of  swallow  activity,  but  at  times  it  seems  as 
if  play  were  the  over-ruling  factor. 


CHAPTER  X 

Hawking 

''True  to  the  season,  o'er  our  sea-boat  shore. 
The  sailing  osprey  high  is  seen  to  soar. 
With  broad  unmoving  wing,  and  circling  slow, 
Marks  each  loose  straggler  in  the  deep  below; 
Sweeps  down  like  lightning!  plunges  with  a  roar! 
And  bears  his  struggling  victim  to  the  shored 

— Alexander  Wilson 

LET  no  one  suppose  I  am  writing  here  of 
that  most  ancient  of  sports — falconr>  or 
hawking — in  the  sense  that  is  usually  in- 
tended, a  sport  that  consists  in  the  pursuit  of  game 
by  trained  and  captive  hawks.  In  the  ruins  of 
Ninevah  a  bas-relief  has  been  found  representing  a 
falconer  bearing  a  hawk  on  his  wrist.  In  England 
hawking  has  been  pursued  from  the  earliest  times, 
and,  although  its  height  of  popularity  was  proba- 
bly reached  during  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
yet  it  still  exists,  as  a  sport  there  today  as  is  at- 

227 


228  BEACH  GRASS 

tested  by  the  numerous  clubs  devoted  to  its  pur- 
suit. The  two  hawks  generally  used  in  this  sport 
in  England  are  the  peregrine  falcon  and  the  spar- 
row hawk.  The  former  is  the  same  as  our  duck 
hawk  with  only  a  slight  subspecihc  difference, 
while  the  latter  is  an  accipiter  like  our  sharp- 
shinned  and  our  Cooper's  hawk  and  is  midway  in 
size  between  them.  By  our  unscientific  early  col- 
onists, our  sparrow  hawk  was  given  the  name  it 
bears,  although  it  is  a  falcon  and  not  an  accipiter 
like  the  British  bird.  It  should  have  been  called 
the  kestrel. 

Now  it  is  one  form  of  sport  to  train  the  captive 
hawk  for  killing,  to  blind  it  with  a  hood  and  to 
starve  it  so  that  it  is  keen  to  strike  its  chosen  vic- 
tim, and  a  very  different  sport  to  watch  the  wild 
bird  enjoying  its  freedom,  its  glorious  powers  of 
flight  and  of  soaring  and  gliding,  with  its  mar- 
velous mastery  of  air  currents,  and,  at  rare  and 
most  exciting  intervals,  to  see  it  strike  its  prey. 
Another  attribute  of  this  form  of  hawking  that  I 
am  here  extolling  is  the  intellectual  pleasure  to 
be  obtained  from  the  recognition  of  the  hawk — 
the  diagnosis  of  the  species. 


HAWKING  229 

This  intellectual  pleasure  deserves  high  rank. 
It  is  true  that  one's  aesthetic  sense  may  be  grat- 
ified and  one  may  receive  great  enjoyment  from 
birds  and  flowers  without  knowledge  of  their 
structure  or  names.  But  on  the  other  hand  it  is 
not  true  that  a  study  of  structure  and  the  rec- 
ognition of  the  species  in  the  field  is  a  detriment 
to  the  pure  enjoyment  of  these  wonderful  crea- 
tures of  nature.  The  musician  who  understands 
the  musical  composition  of  a  symphony  and 
whose  ear  is  attuned  to  all  its  finer  points,  re- 
ceives at  a  concert  infinitely  more  pleasure  than 
one  who  is  ignorant  of  these  matters.  One  who 
has  studied  flowers  and  birds  and  is  able  to  dis- 
tinguish the  exact-  kind  and  the  significance  of 
form  and  markings,  sees  far  more  of  their  beauty 
than  one  not  so  trained  and  he  obtains  correspond- 
ingly more  enjoyment.  The  untrained  observer 
often  fails  to  see  the  bird  or  flower  at  all,  and  if 
it  is  called  to  his  attention,  sees  it  but  imperfectly. 
The  enjoyment  shown  by  naturalists — and  I  re- 
fer to  the  out-of-doors  and  not  to  the  closet 
type — is  evidenced  in  their  writings.  Wilson, 
Audubon,      Darwin      and      Wallace,      Gilbert 


230  BEACH  GRASS 

White  and  Hudson  are  conspicuous  examples. 
I  am  sure,  although  it  is  heresy  to  say  so,  Thoreau 
would  have  had  more  pleasure  from  his  studies 
of  out-of-doors  and  would  have  given  the  world 
more  pleasure,  if  he  had  been  willing  to  study 
more  closely  and  identify  more  carefully  birds 
and  flowers. 

We  are  fortunate  in  having  in  this  part  of 
the  world  a  number  of  different  hawks  that  one 
may  see  from  time  to  time — a  good  baker's 
dozen  of  them — and  several  are  fairly  common. 
In  England  hawks  of  all  kinds,  good  and  bad — 
and  most  of  them  are  in  reality  good  as  they  prey 
on  mice  and  insects — are  all  looked  upon  as  "ver- 
min" and  shot  at  sight.  The  noble  sport  of 
pheasant  raising  and  pheasant  slaughter  must  not 
be  interfered  with,  or  even  its  nerves  offended. 
There  is  great  danger  that  this  dreadful  contagion 
will  spread  to  our  shores  by  the  introduction  of 
the  pheasant  and  the  English  game-keeper.  It  is 
impossible  to  change  the  fixed  ideas  on  vermin  of 
the  latter  species. 

Hudson  beautifully  expressed  the  joy  to  be 
found  in  the  contemplation  of  the  soaring  hawk 


HAWKING  231 

and  his  destestation  of  its  extermination  in 
England.  He  says:  "For  who  that  has  ever 
looked  at  nature  in  other  regions,  where  this  per- 
petual hideous  war  of  extermination  against  all 
noble  feathered  life  is  not  carried  on,  does  not 
miss  the  great  soaring  bird  in  the  scene — eagle,  or 
vulture,  or  buzzard,  or  kite,  or  harrier — floating  at 
ease  on  broad  vans,  or  rising  heavenwards  in  vast 
and  ever  vaster  circles'?  That  is  the  one  object  in 
nature  which  has  the  effect  of  widening  the  pros- 
pect just  as  if  the  spectator  had  himself  been  mi- 
raculously raised  to  a  greater  altitude,  while  at 
the  same  time  the  blue  dome  of  the  sky  appears 
to  be  lifted  to  an  immeasurable  height  above 
him.  The  soaring  figure  reveals  to  sight  and 
mind  the  immensity  and  glory  of  the  visible 
world.  Without  it  the  blue  sky  can  never  seem 
sublime.  But  the  great  soaring  bird  is  nowhere 
in  our  lonely  sky,  and  missing  it  we  remember  the 
reason  of  its  absence  and  realize  what  the  modern 
craze  for  the  artificially  reared  pheasant  has  cost 
us." 

Far  off  in  the  distant  sky  a  great  bird  is  soar- 
ing on   nearly   motionless   wings.     Again   he    is 


232  BEACH  GRASS 

poised  like  a  kite  over  the  brow  of  yonder  hill. 
Nearer  at  hand  a  lithe  and  graceful  creature  is 
flying  close  to  the  open  ground,  patiently  quar- 
tering the  whole  field.  Again  one  may  see  a 
hawk  slinking  along,  alternately  gliding  and  flap- 
ping by  copse  and  hedge,  fearlessly  passing 
within  a  few  yards  of  the  human  observer.  Again 
a  small  hawk  with  pointed  wings  is  hovering  over 
a  grassy  pasture  and  drops  at  frequent  intervals 
to  the  ground,  or  a  larger  bird,  built  on  the  same 
plan  suddenly  darts  like  a  winged  arrow  and 
spreads  devastation  among  a  flock  of  terrified 
shore  birds.  It  is  rarely  the  case  that  one  is  able 
to  make  out  the  markings  of  these  birds.  In  the 
distance  they  are  dark  objects  silhouetted  against 
the  sky,  and  near  at  hand  their  velocity  of  flight 
and  the  excitement  that  their  sudden  apparition 
creates,  not  only  in  the  birds  but  in  the  bird- 
watcher, makes  the  careful  study  of  markings 
difficult.  On  these  accounts  many  observers, 
keen  and  accurate  enough  in  the  case  of  other 
birds  are  often  in  despair  with  the  identification 
of  hawks,  and  their  despair  is  increased  by  the 
fact  that  most  artificial  keys  in  the  books  dwell 


HAWKING  23^ 

chiefly  on  the  markings  that  they  fail  to  see.  For 
example  one  of  the  best  recent  handbooks  gives  a 
key  for  field  identification  in  which  the  presence 
or  absence  of  cross-bars  on  the  under  parts  are 
cardinal  points ! 

With  the  exception  of  the  marsh  hawk,  the 
bald  eagle  and  the  fish  hawk  or  osprey — all  of 
which  are  easily  recognized — the  hawks  of  this  re- 
gion in  particular  and  of  Northeastern  America 
in  general  fall  into  three  groups :  viz,  the  falcons, 
the  buteos  and  the  accipiters.  These  groups  are 
fundamental,  easily  identified,  and,  if  once 
learned,  the  key  to  the  hawks  is  within  reach. 

The  falcons  can  be  distinguished  by  their  long, 
narrow,  pointed  wings  that  reach  nearly  to  the 
end  of  their  long  tails  when  at  rest,  and  by  their 
swift  and  graceful  flight.  The  buteos  are  dis- 
tinguished by  their  broad  wings,  their  short  tails 
and  their  frequent  habit  of  soaring  in  circles. 
The  accipiters  are  distinguished  by  their  short, 
broad  wings  which  reach  only  to  the  base  of  their 
long  tails,  and  by  their  habit  of  alternately  sail- 
ing and  flapping  in  flight. 

Tn  order  to  show  at  a  glance  the  difference  in 


234  BEACH  GRASS 

the  shape  of  these  three  classes  of  hawks  in  the 
flight,  as  we  most  frequently  see  them  silhouetted 
against  the  sky,  I  have  drawn  the  outline  of  a 
freshly  killed  hawk  from  each  class  with  wings 
extended.  These  outlines  were  then  reduced  to 
one  eighth  of  life  size,  so  that  they  could  be  used 
as  an  illustration.  Under  each  figure  is  printed 
the  name  of  the  hawk  chosen  and  beside  each  the 
names  of  the  other  hawks  in  the  same  group. 

A  study  of  the  diagrams  with  the  brief  de- 
scription already  given  should  enable  one  to  dis- 
tinguish a  falcon,  a  buteo  or  an  accipiter.  Of  our 
falcons  the  smallest  is  the  sparrow  hawk,  next 
the  pigeon  hawk  while  the  largest  is  the  duck 
hawk  or  peregrine  falcon,  while  the  rare  gyrfal- 
cons  of  the  north  are  larger  still. 

The  sparrow  hawk  is  a  confiding  little  bird, 
and  often  nests  in  holes  in  old  apple-trees  close 
to  houses.  He  frequently  alights  on  telegraph 
poles  where  he  waves  his  tail  up  and  down,  and 
flies  from  pole  to  pole  ahead  of  the  wayfarer 
leading  him  on.  Seen  at  close  range,  as  is  often 
the  case,  the  striking  face  markings  and  the  rich 
foxy  brown  back  make  his  recognition  easy.     He 


FIGURE    I 


FALCONS 


SPARROW   HAWK 
PIUEON     HAWK 


WHITE  aVRPALCON 
BLACK  GYRFALCON 


DUCK  HAWK 
FIGURE  II 

BUTfOS 


REO-SHOULDEREDHAWK 
BRPAD-WINaeDHAWK 


ROUCHLE&aEDHAWK 


RED-TAILED  HAWK 
FIGURE    III 


CO  5  HAWK 


OOPERiHAWK 


SHAR$>-5HINN£D  HAWK 

OUTLINE    DRAWINGS    OF    HAWKS 


HAWKING  235 

has  a  habit  of  hovering  a  few  feet  above  the  grass 
and  pouncing  down  at  grasshoppers  and  crickets. 
The  pigeon  hawk  is  a  little  larger,  has  broader 
shoulders  and  is  dark  blue  above,  while  the  duck 
hawk  is  a  much  larger  falcon  and  has  markings 
like  black  mustachios.  He  has  a  dashing  way 
with  him.  I  was  watching  a  flock  of  grass  birds 
in  the  salt  marsh  w^hen  a  duck  hawk  suddenly  ap- 
peared, struck  one  of  them  dead  within  thirty 
yards  of  me,  passed  on  in  its  impetuous  flight, 
but,  swinging  about,  seized  the  dead  bird  in  its 
talons  and  was  off.  The  whole  thing  was  done 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  so  that  it  was  difficult 
to  realize  what  had  happened.  This  is  the  habit 
of  the  duck  hawk  or  the  peregrine  falcon,  a  quick 
rush  or  ''stoop"  in  the  language  of  the  hawker,  a 
strike  in  passing,  which  kills,  and  a  return  to  bear 
off  the  prey.  The  strike  is  almost  always  on  a 
bird  awing.  Ducks  evince  the  greatest  terror 
when  this  falcon  dashes  in  amongst  a  flying  flock. 
Not  so  when  they  are  swimming  on  the  water. 
One  December  day  I  saw  a  splendid  duck  hawk 
fly  out  from  the  dunes  and  scale  over  a  flock  of 
scoter  ducks  on  the  ocean.     It  then  turned  about 


236  BEACH  GRASS 

and  disappeared  among  the  dunes.  The  ducks 
appeared  not  a  whit  disturbed  and  paid  no  atten- 
tion to  their  very  transient  visitor. 

Of  the  buteos,  the  smallest  is  the  broad-winged 
hawk,  much  larger  is  the  red-shouldered  hawk, 
next  in  grandeur  the  red-tailed  hawk,  while  the 
rough-legged  is  the  largest  of  all,  nearly  as  large 
as  an  eagle.  The  broad-winged  is  about  the 
size  of  a  crow  and  usually  very  unsuspicious  so 
that  its  recognition  is  an  easy  one.  One  may 
often  hear  its  distinctive  cry,  a  mournful  double 
whistle  suggestive  of  the  call  of  the  wood  pewee. 

A  large  buteo  soaring  in  the  distance  should  be 
examined  carefully  with  the  glasses.  If  it  is  an 
adult  red-tailed  hawk  the  foxy-red  color  of  the 
tail  seen  from  either  above  or  below  will 
flash  at  times,  as  the  light  strikes  it,  and  will  pro- 
claim its  identity.  This  species  is  a  trifle  larger 
than  the  red-shouldered  hawk,  but  the  difference 
in  size  without  actual  comparison  is  of  little  value 
for  identification.  If  the  tail  is  not  red,  it  is 
either  an  immature  red-tailed  hawk  or  a  red- 
shouldered  hawk.  In  the  latter  bird  the  russet 
brown  shoulders  can  be  seen  only  under  the  most 


HAWKING  237 

favorable  conditions.  Its  scream  is  a  familiar 
one,  as  it  is  frequently  imitated  by  the  blue  jay, 
while  the  red-tailed  hawk's  scream  is  strongly 
suggestive  of  the  sound  of  escaping  steam. 

The  rough-legged  hawk  comes  to  us  in  winter 
from  Labrador.  He  is  a  magnificent  bird,  and, 
in  his  dark  phase,  is  as  black  as  a  crow  and  as  de- 
void of  markings.  In  the  light  phase  he  has  a 
white  rump  or  base  of  the  tail  and  often  a  black 
band  across  the  lower  chest.  The  flight  of  the 
rough-leg  is  graceful  and  indicative  of  skill  and 
power.  On  motionless  wings,  if  the  wind  be 
favorable,  he  often  soars  high  in  the  blue  vault 
of  the  sky,  a  picture  long  to  be  treasured.  The 
wings  and  tail  are  extended  to  the  full,  the  first 
half-dozen  quills  spread  out  separately  and  curved 
upwards    at    their    tips    from    the    air    pressure. 

Sometimes,  when  not  too  high,  the  bird  may 
be  seen  to  look  down,  to  lower  its  long  feathered 
legs  from  under  the  tail,  where  all  hawks  carr) 
them  in  flight,  to  partially  close  its  wings,  and  to 
drop  like  a  plummet  on  the  prey,  which  its  keen 
vision  has  singled  out.  After  one  of  these  de- 
scents the  bird  I  was  watching  flew  ofF  with  a 


238  BEACH  GRASS 

large  mouse,  after  another  with  a  cottontail  rab- 
bit. It  is  one  of  our  most  beneficial  hawks  and, 
like  all  the  buteos,  which,  alas,  are  ignorantly 
classed  as  "hen  hawks,"  almost  never  touches  a 
feather. 

I  shall  never  forget  an  incident  which  proved 
the  beneficial  character  of  one  of  this  species  to 
an  English  game-keeper  who  was  imbued  with 
the  belief  that  all  hawks  are  noxious  vermin. 
It  was  at  the  heath  hen  reservation  at  Marthas 
Vineyard  and  the  keeper  in  question  had  killed 
a  rough-legged  hawk  which,  from  its  size,  he  had 
deemed  the  arch  enemy  of  his  flock.  The  stomach 
of  his  victim  was  distended  to  its  full  capacity, 
and  maintaining  my  expectation  of  mice,  I  opened 
it  before  him.  Instead  of  finding,  as  the  keeper 
had  predicted,  young  heath  hens  within,  we  found 
the  stomach  stuffed  with  the  fur  and  bones  of 
field-mice:  not  a  feather  was  to  be  found.  My 
triumph  was  complete  and  the  reputation  of  the 
hawk  was  saved,  but  I  doubt  if  it  disturbed  the 
keeper's  belief. 

Of  the  accipitrine  group,  the  smallest  is  the 
sharp-shinned    hawk,    next    larger   the   Cooper's 


HAWKING  239 

hawk,  while  the  largest  of  all  is  the  goshawk. 
It  is  to  be  remembered  that  male  hawks  are 
smaller,  sometimes  a  third  smaller  than  the 
females,  a  fact  that  is  brought  out  in  the  lan- 
guage of  falconry  where  the  male  hawks  are 
called  tiercels^  corrupted  to  tercels  and  tassels. 
A  female  sharp-shinned  hawk  may  be  nearly  as 
large  as  a  male  Cooper's  hawk.  The  sha{)e  of 
the  ends  of  the  tails  in  these  two  hawks  is  the 
important  point;  in  the  sharp-shinned  it  is  square- 
cut,  in  the  Cooper's  it  is  rounded  like  a  coop — 
an  easy  mnemonic. 

The  immature  goshawk  is  larger  than  a 
Cooper's  hawk  but  resembles  it  in  form  and 
coloration.  The  adult  goshawk,  however,  is 
noticeable  by  reason  of  its  slaty  gray  back,  black 
top  to  the  head  and  black  cheek  patch,  and  by 
the  fine  barring  on  the  white  under  parts. 

The  accipiters  soar  at  times  but  their  usual 
and  characteristic  flight  is  a  succession  of  flutters 
and  sails,  of  wing  flappings  and  glidings.  They 
steal  along  by  copse  and  hedge-row  or  boldly  en- 
ter the  chicken-yard  and  strike  terror  wherever 
they  go.     They  are  true  chicken  hawks  and  small 


240  BEACH  GRASS 

bird  murderers.  They  are  the  farmer's  enemy. 
Unlike  the  peregrine  falcon,  the  accipiters  do 
not  strike  their  prey  on  the  wing  a  killing  stroke 
with  the  foot  and  then  return  to  pick  them  up, 
but  they  pounce  upon  them  as  a  rule  on  the  ground 
or  a  perch,  and,  thrusting  their  talons  deep, 
"truss"  them  in  the  language  of  falconry  and 
crush  out  their  life. 

There  are  three  other  hawks  that  may  be  seen 
in  northeastern  America — the  marsh  hawk  the 
bald  eagle  and  the  fish  hawk  or  osprey. 

The  marsh  hawk  is  our  commonest  hawk  and  is 
often  to  be  seen  flying  over  marsh  or  dune  or  up- 
land pasture.  He  is  a  harrier  like  the  English 
harrier  and  carefully  quarters  the  ground,  flying 
and  sailing  back  and  forth  within  a  few  yards  of  it 
in  his  search  for  mice  and  other  small  vermin. 
It  must  be  confessed  that  he  occasionally  captures 
a  bird  and  that  some  individuals  are  notorious 
offenders  in  that  direction,  but  the  species  as  a 
whole  is  one  of  the  farmer's  friends.  His  habit 
of  flight,  his  long  wings  and  tail  and,  most  marked 
of  all,  his  snow-white  rump  makes  recognition 
easy.     The  only  other  hawk  with  a  white  rump 


HAWKING  241 

is  the  very  much  larger  and  heavier  rough-legged 
hawk  already  described,  a  bird  of  a  different 
build.  The  general  coloration  of  the  marsh 
hawk  varies  from  a  beautiful  rufous  brown  in 
the  female  and  immature  to  a  light  pearl  blue  in 
the  adult  male. 

A  huge  bird  with  snow-white  head  and  tail  is 
none  other  than  a  bald  eagle,  but,  as  the  im- 
mature birds  lack  the  white  and  are  uniform 
brown  in  color,  one  is  obliged  in  their  case  to  de- 
pend on  the  great  size  and  general  appearance. 
The  fish  hawk  or  osprey  is  easily  recognized  as  it 
is  the  only  large  hawk  that  is  dark  above  and 
white  below.  With  glasses  one  can  generally 
make  out  the  white  line  over  the  eye.  If  it  indul- 
ges in  its  usual  spectacular  occupation  of  hovering 
over  the  water,  and  dropping  with  a  splash,  a  child 
of  three  may  identify  it.  If  the  plunge  is  suc- 
cessful, the  fish  is  born  aloft  and  carried  in  the 
talons  with  head  pointing  forward. 

All  hawks  may  delight  the  eye  by  soaring  in 
circles,  sometimes  to  such  a  great  height  that 
they  are  mere  specks  in  the  sky.  Sometimes  they 
flap  their  wings  at  certain  parts  of  the  circle. 


242  BEACH  GRASS 

but  at  other  times  their  wings  appear  motionless 
save  for  slight  adjustments  from  time  to  time, 
yet  in  a  mysterious  way  the  great  birds  rise  higher 
and  higher.  How  can  these  things  be?  How 
can  a  bird  defy  gravity  and  sail  upwards  without 
muscular  effort  on  its  part  other  than  the  great 
strength  needed  to  keep  its  wings  ext€nded'? 

Watch  a  hawk  or  a  gull  or  a  pigeon  gliding  on 
outstretched  wings  in  its  descent  towards  the 
ground.  Is  it  not  evident  that  if  the  wind,  into 
which  it  generally  glides  should  be  deflected  up- 
wards, the  glide  could  be  continued  in  the  same 
horizontal  plane  or  turned  even  slightly  upwards'? 
Such  indeed  is  often  the  case.  Watch  an  aero- 
plane with  engine  shut  off  gliding  against  a  wind 
to  a  landing.  How  slowly  it  approaches  the 
earth!  and  we  are  told  by  aviators  that  if  an  in- 
equality in  the  ground  causes  an  upward  deflec- 
tion of  the  wind  that  the  descent  is  even  more 
gradual.  One  does  not  need  to  be  an  aviator 
to  understand  these  things.^ 

^  Since  this  was  written  there  have  been  some  remarkable 
instances  of  human  gliding  and  soaring,  dependent  on  the 
use  of  up-currents.  These  confirm  the  statement  I  have 
made  that  "there  is  no  mystery  about  it" 


HAWKING  24^ 

It  is  evident  that  the  soaring  hawk,  much  more 
lightly  build  than  the  aeroplane  in  proportion  to 
its  wing  surface,  and  with  a  marvelous  instinc- 
tive knowledge  of  flight,  takes  advantage  of  air 
currents,  and,  when  they  are  sufficiently  strong  in 
an  upward  degree,  he  is  able,  by  gliding  in  circles, 
to  mount  higher  and  higher  without  a  flap  of  his 
wings.  Lacking  the  upward  currents  he  would 
fail  to  rise  or  even  to  maintain  the  same  level, 
for,  after  each  downward  glide,  his  ascending 
glide  would  fall  short  of  his  previous  elevation. 
One  can  coast  on  a  sled  down  one  hill  and  up 
another  but  not  to  the  same  level.  One  must 
walk  the  rest  of  the  way.  If  the  up-currents  are 
not  sufficient,  the  hawk  has  to  do  a  little  hill- 
climbing  by  ordinary  wing  strokes  and  he  then 
glides  again  and  swings  up  as  far  as  he  can. 
The  up-currents  of  the  higher  air,  we  now  know 
from  aviators  and  meteorologists,  are  sometimes 
very  powerful,  especially  on  days  that  are  calm 
enough  on  the  surface  of  the  ground.  That 
hawks  are  past-masters  in  taking  advantage  of 
these  currents  no  one  can  doubt. 

When  a  strong  wind  blows  against  a  cliff  or 


244  BEACH  GRASS 

a  steep  hill  it  is  evident,  even  to  the  ground 
walker,  that  powerful  up-currents  are  formed. 
If  he  stands  on  the  edge  of  the  cliff  the  loose 
ends  of  his  garments  are  blown  upwards.  Hawks 
often  take  advantage  of  this  state  of  affairs  and, 
if  the  up-current  is  strong  enough,  are  able  to 
poise,  like  a  boy's  kite,  motionless  on  outstretched 
wings.  Here  gravity  takes  the  place  of  the 
string.  Like  a  kite  the  hawk  swings  about  if  the 
wind  is  gusty.  If  the  wind  drops  temporarily 
he  must  needs  maintain  his  position  by  hovering. 
This  demonstration  of  the  use  of  up-currents 
should  be  plain  to  every  one.  There  is  no  mys- 
tery about  it.  The  rough-kgged  hawk  is  an 
adept  in  poising  in  up-currents.  Many  a  time 
have  I  watched  him  in  Labrador  and  Ipswich 
poised  thus. 

One  of  the  most  intimate  studies  I  have  ever 
made  of  the  use  of  up-currents  by  birds,  was  in 
the  case  of  gannets  at  the  Bonaventure  cliffs  in 
the  Gaspe  Peninsula.  Against  these  splendid 
cliffs  some  three  hundred  feet  in  height  a  strong 
sea-breeze  was  often  blowing,  and  it  was  very 
evident  even  to  my  dull  senses,  as  I  stood  on  the 


HAWKING  245 

brow  of  the  cliff  that  the  air  was  deflected  ii))- 
wards.  The  great  snowy  birds  were  circling 
about  on  their  outstretched  pinions,  which  were 
held  motionless  except  for  the  slight  adjustments 
needed  from  time  to  time  by  the  varying  gusts. 
Many  of  them  passed  within  fifteen  feet  of  me,  as 
I  sat  along  the  dwarfed  spruces  on  the  brink  of 
the  cliffs,  so  that  I  could  study  every  movement. 
One  bird  that  I  kept  within  my  vision  soared  in 
circles,  perhaps  three  hundred  feet  in  diameter, 
with  never  a  flap  of  his  wings  except  for  a 
moment  when  he  attempted  to  alight  near  his 
nest  on  a  ledge.  Ten  times  he  essayed  a  landing, 
but  it  was  not  until  the  eleventh  circuit  that  the 
conditions  were  entirely  to  his  liking  and  the  task 
was  accomplished.  On  each  of  the  last  three 
rounds  he  executed  an  additional  smaller  circle, 
thus  completing  a  perfect  figure  of  eight.  It  was 
a  beautiful  demonstration  of  the  use  made  by 
birds  of  ascending  currents  of  air. 

Near  this  same  island  at  Perce  is  a  rose-colored 
peak,  the  Montaigne  Rouge  or  Pic  d'Aurore 
which  rises  seven  hundred  feet  sheer  from  the  sea. 
About  its  precipitous  sides  herring  gulls  were  al- 


246  BEACH  GRASS 

ways  passing  back  and  forth  to  their  nests,  and, 
taking  advantage  of  the  up-currents  produced  by 
the  strong  sea-breeze  striking  the  cliffs,  were  float- 
ing upwards  like  white  feathers.  Occasionally 
a  black  feather  was  to  be  seen,  as  ravens 
visited  the  same  cliffs  intent  on  robbing  the  gulls' 
nests  of  eggs  or  young.  One  raven  that  I 
watched  floated  upwards  the  seven  hundred  feet 
with  scarcely  a  wing  stroke,  born  up  by  the  gale. 

While  it  is  a  common  thing  to  see  a  pair  of 
hawks  of  the  same  species  mounting  together  in 
circles  into  the  blue,  it  is  not  often  that  hawks 
of  different  species  play  together  thus.  On  a 
beautiful  May  day  I  watched  a  large  duck 
hawk  and  a  marsh  hawk  apparently  playing  to- 
gether, they  circled  about  high  up,  the  upper  one 
frequently  falling  rapidly  as  if  to  strike  the 
lower,  who  would  then  turn  over  to  grapple,  al- 
though, as  far  as  I  could  see,  they  never  actually 
touched  each  other.  This  was  repeated  again 
and  again,  sometimes  one  and  sometimes  the  other 
the  aggressor. 

When  that  bird  of  Jove  and  of  Washington, 
the  bald  eagle,  soars  into  the  vault  of  heaven — 


HAWKING  247 

a  rare  sight  in  these  parts — one  must  needs  hold 
his  breath  in  wonder  and  admiration.  The 
snowy-white  head  and  tail  flash  out  as  they  catch 
the  sunlight  on  each  successive  turn  of  the  circle. 
Each  long  feather  of  the  wings  stands  out  like 
fingers  of  a  hand.  Higher  and  higher  he  goes, 
soaring  about  in  great  circles  with  majestic  grace. 
Suddenly  he  turns  and  launches  his  great  aero- 
plane downward  with  amazing  speed. 
Hawking  is  indeed  a  sport  of  Kings  I 


CHAPTER  XI 

Courtship  in  Birds 

''The  blackbird  hence  selects  her  sooty  spouse; 
The  nightingale^   her  musical  compeer^ 
Lured  by  the  well-known  voice ^  the  bird  of  night. 
Smit  with  her  dusky  wings  and  greenish  eyes, 
Woos  his  dun  paramour.     The   beauteous  race 
Speak  the  chaste  love  of  their  progenitors. 
When,  by  the  spring  invited,  they  exult 
In  woods  and  fields,  and  to  the  sun  unfold 
Their  plumes,  that  with  paternal  colours  glow.'' 

— Addison 

THE  difference  between  the  mentality  of 
birds  and  of  man  is  enormous  and  we  must 
be  on  our  guard  against  imputing  purely 
human  motive  to  the  lower  animals.  On  the 
other  hand  the  difference  between  man  and  the 
lower  animals  in  many  important  matters  is  not 
one  of  kind,  but  one  merely  of  degree. 

A  gull  will  drag  a  dried  fish  from  the  upper 
beach  to  the  water  to  soften  it  before  eating,  a 

248 


COURTSHIP  IN  BIRDS  249 

grackle  will  dip  a  tough  bit  of  biscuit  in  the  water 
for  the  same  purpose,  and  a  man  will  soften  a 
hard  crust  in  his  coffee.  How  much  is  sub-con- 
scious instinct  or  reflex  action  in  some  or  all  of 
these  cases  and  how  much  is  self-conscious  reason- 
ing and  forethought — it  is  not  my  purpose  to  dis- 
cuss here.  To  call  it  instinct  in  all  cases  in  the 
lower  animals  and  reason  in  all  cases  in  man  may 
possibly  savor  of  conceit. 

The  desire  to  live,  to  obtain  food  and  to  mate 
are  primitive  inborn  instincts  common  to  both  the 
lower  animals  and  to  man.  To  gratify  these  in- 
stincts similar  actions  are  resorted  to  by  both  the 
lower  animals  and  man.  The  actions  of  a  child 
desiring  food  from  a  table  and  those  of  a  dog  un- 
der the  same  circumstances  are  very  much  alike. 
Each  appeals  by  voice  and  actions  for  the  food, 
each  is  anxious  to  please  the  owner  oi  the 
food,  and  each — unless  the  point  has  been 
reached  in  its  experience  of  life  when  it  fears 
the  consequences  of  unlawful  acts — will  avail 
itself  of  an  opportunity  to  surreptitiously  snatch 
the  food. 

In  the  same  wav  the  desin^  of  the  malr  bird 


250  BEACH  GRASS 

to  please  the  female  more  than  its  rivals  please 
the  same  bird  appeals  to  us  as  a  very  reasonable 
and  very  human  point  of  view.  This  is  what 
leads  to  courtship,  and  in  this  courtship  rivalry 
it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  the  best  bird  wins. 
Although  it  has  been  somewhat  the  fashion  of 
late  to  decry  Darwin's  theory  of  sexual  selec- 
tion and  to  substitute  others  for  it,  its  simplic- 
ity and  common  sense  still  appeal  to  many, 
and  it  is  worth  while  occasionally  to  consult  the 
original  text. 

Darwin  published  his  ''Origin  or  Species"  in 
1859.  In  Chapter  IV  he  says  he  is  led  "to  say  a 
few  words  on  what  I  have  called  Sexual  Selec- 
tion. This  form  of  selection  depends,  not  on  a 
struggle  for  existence  in  relation  to  other  organic 
beings  or  to  external  conditions,  but  on  a  struggle 
between  the  individuals  of  one  sex,  generally  the 
males,  for  the  possession  of  the  other  sex.  The 
result  is  not  death  to  the  unsuccessful  competitor, 
but  few  or  no  offspring.  Sexual  selection  is, 
therefore,  less  rigorous  than  natural  selection. 
Generally,  the  most  vigorous  males,  those  which 
are  best  fitted  for  their  places  in  nature,   will 


COURTSHIP  IN  BIRDS  251 

leave  most  progeny.  But  in  many  cases,  victory 
depends  not  so  much  on  general  vigor,  as  on 
having  special  weapons  conhned  to  the  male  sex. 
A  hornless  stag  or  spurless  cock  would  have  a 
poor  chance  of  leaving  numerous  offspring. 

''Amongst  birds,  the  contest  is  often  of  a  more 
peaceful  character.  All  those  who  have  attended 
to  the  subject,  believe  that  there  is  the  severest 
rivalry  between  the  males  of  many  species  to  at- 
tract, by  singing,  the  females.  The  rock-thrush 
of  Guiana,  birds  of  paradise,  and  some  others, 
congregate;  and  successive  males  display  with  the 
most  elaborate  care,  and  show  off  in  the  best 
manner  their  most  gorgeous  plumage;  they  like- 
wise perform  strange  antics  before  the  females, 
which,  standing  by  as  spectators,  at  last  choose 
the  most  attractive  partner. 

"I  cannot  here  enter  on  the  necessary  details; 
but  if  man  can  in  a  short  time  give  beauty  and  an 
elegant  carriage  to  his  bantams,  according  to  his 
standard  of  beauty,  I  can  see  no  good  reason  to 
doubt  that  female  birds,  by  selecting,  during 
thousands  of  generations,  the  most  melodious  or 
beautiful    males,    according    to    their    standard 


252  BEACH  GRASS 

of  beauty,  might  produce  a  marked  effect." 
Eliot  Howard/  on  the  other  hand,  believes 
that  display  and  extravagant  bodily  antics  are 
merely  ''reflex  actions  directly  resulting  from 
any  excessive  excitement,  that  they  are  not  con- 
fined solely  to  courtship  and  do  not  in  any  way 
influence  the  female."  The  fact  that  the  bril- 
liantly arrayed  male  Argus  pheasant  and  the 
dull-colored  Savin's  warbler  both  spread  out 
and  raise  their  wings  and  tails  during  courtship 
seem  to  Howard  a  strong  argument  against  sex- 
ual selection. 

Pycraft "  says,  "In  these  pages  it  is  contended 
that  neither  brilliant  coloration  nor  any  form  of 
ornamentation  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  direct  ac- 
tion of  'sexual  selection.'  That  is  to  say  such 
conspicuous  features  have  not  been  dependent  on 
the  action  of  formal  choice  for  their  survival 
and  development,  but  are  rather  the  'expression 
points'  of  the  internal,  inherent  growth  variations, 
which,  not  being  inimical  to  the  welfare  of  the 
species,  have  been  free  to  pursue  their  develop- 
ment  in   any   direction   which   apparent   chance 

1  The  British   Warblers. 

2  Courtship   of   Animals. 


COURTSHIP  IN   BIRDS  253 

may  dictate."  In  another  place  he  says:  "The 
frills  and  furbelows" — crests,  vivid  hues,  etc., 
can — "be  traced  to  the  stimulating  action  of 
the  'hormones'  which  control  both  pigmentation 
and  structure,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  both 
are  modified  by  any  interference  with  the  glands 
in  question.  Such  ornamental  features  are  then 
the  concomitants,  not  the  result,  of  sexual  selec- 
tion," and  again  "sexual  selection,  other  things 
being  equal,  operates  by  according  the  greatest 
number  of  descendents  to  the  most  amorous  and 
not  necessarily  to  those  of  the  highest  hues." 
He  is  therefore  willing  to  admit  that  amorous 
behavior  by  song  and  dance  and  display  of  plum- 
age influence  and  attract  the  female  but  he  ob- 
jects to  the  bold  statement  that  she  selects  the 
male.  Such  mental  qualifications  satisfy  those 
who  would  cast  aside  Darwin's  theory  of  sexual 
selection,  but  after  all  is  said  this  theory,  if  not 
taken  too  literally,  explains  the  facts  better  than 
any  other.  It  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that  the 
female  critically  examines  the  display  of  color, 
dance  or  song  of  the  rivals  and  balances  them 
in  her  mind,  but  if  we  admit,  as  Pycraft  is  will- 


254  BEACH  GRASS 

ing  to  do,  that  she  is  attracted  and  influenced  by 
these,  even  if  only  in  a  reflex  or  sub-conscious 
way,  we  have  practically  admitted  the  truth  of 
Darwin's  theory.  The  fittest  male  in  any  or  all 
of  these  respects  will  be  more  likely  to  perpetuate 
the  race. 

The  motives  of  dislay  of  color,  dance  and  song 
are  easily  understood,  for  in  one  form  or  another 
they  have  all  been  used  in  human  courtship.  The 
likenesses  are  fundamental  and  extend  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest  in  the  human  species,  but 
are  most  strikingly  seen  in  the  lowest,  more  primi- 
tive races. 

Although  at  the  present  day  and  among  the 
highest  developed  human  races  the  display  of 
bright  colors  is  more  marked  among  the  females 
than  the  males,  it  must  be  remembered  that  this 
is  a  recent  development.  Only  a  few  generations 
back  the  males,  instead  of  wearing  black  or  som- 
bre clothing,  were  as  brilliantly  apparelled  as 
the  females,  and  among  savages  it  is  the  male 
that  is  strikingly  bedecked  with  feathers,  tattoo 
markings  and  paint,  while  the  female  is  quiet 
enough  in  her  apparel  or  lack  of  apparel.     The 


COURTSHIP  IN  BIRDS  255 

tendency  of  the  highly  civilized  male  to  revert 
to  brilliant  display  of  clothing  is  shown  in  his 
fondness  for  military  finery  and  for  striking 
colors  when  he  is  freed  from  the  restraining  hand 
of  convention,  as  witness  the  cowboy  and  the 
sportsman. 

In  both  bird  and  man  the  display  of  bright 
colors  and  attractive  patterns,  the  dance  and  the 
song,  even  if  of  courtship  origin  and  competitive 
in  character,  may  lose  the  conscious,  sexual  side 
and  be  continued  at  other  times  for  mere  pleas- 
ure, in  other  words  the  original  incentive  for  dis- 
play, song  and  dance  may  be  entirely  lost,  but 
that  does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  any  argument 
against  the  theory  of  sexual  selection. 

The  explanation  of  the  brilliant  colors  of  male 
birds  on  a  mere  physico-chemical  basis  due  to 
exuberance  of  vitality,  the  maleness  of  the  males, 
or  the  stimulation  of  the  hormones  in  the  court- 
ship season  fails  to  account  for  the  fact  that  the 
brilliance  of  display  in  this  season  may  occur 
without  the  growth  of  new  feathers,  but  merely 
by  the  wearing  down  of  old  feathers  and  the  un- 
veiling of  concealed  patterns.     This  is  true   in 


256  BEACH  GRASS 

the  case  of  the  snow  bunting,  the  junco  and  the 
chewink,  and  is  strikingly  shown  in  the  case  of 
the  English  sparrow,  where  the  process  goes  on 
all  unnoticed  at  our  feet. 

The  ultra-concealing-colorationists  say  that 
the  brilliant  colors  serve  to  conceal,  but  one  who 
has  watched  eiders  in  the  north,  even  though  he 
admits  that  the  green  and  white  and  black  may 
match  the  iceberg  and  the  sea  and  the  rocks,  is 
as  sure  that  the  colors  are  for  display  and  for 
conspicuousness  as  he  is  that  black  is  black  and 
white  is  white.  The  speed  with  which  the  male 
discards  his  brilliant  dress  when  the  spring 
madness  is  over  seems  to  bear  him  out  in  this 
opinion. 

A  recent  writer  ^  in  ''The  Auk"  states  his  opin- 
ion, that  the  brilliant  colors  and  markings  of  the 
group  of  warblers  "act  as  a  uniform,  faciliating 
the  recognition  by  a  bird  of  its  own  kind  just 
as  they  facilitate  its  recognition  by  a  bird  stu- 
dent." How  then  does  he  account  for  the  fact 
that  the  females  and  young,  who  need  most  to 
be   identified,    are  most  obscurely  marked,   and 

ij.  T.   Nichols.     Auk,    1912,  XXXVI,  228. 


COURTSHIP  IN  BIRDS  257 

who  can  doubt  that  birds  can  not  only  identify 
their  own  species  with  ease  no  matter  how  poorly 
marked,  but  can  pick  out  even  their  own  off- 
spring from  others'?  Does  a  Chinese  woman 
have  any  difficulty  in  recognizing  her  own  off- 
spring in  a  group  of  hundreds,  all  sinularl) 
dressed  and  looking  alike  as  peas  to  our  un- 
trained eyes?  Or,  to  bring  the  matter  nearer 
home,  watch  a  mother  enter  a  schoolyard  in 
which  a  hundred  small  children  all  of  the  same 
age  and  dress  are  playing.  She  picks  out  her  own 
child,  brushes  its  dress  and  wipes  its  nose  with 
a  perfect  certainty  of  conviction  as  to  its  identi- 
fication, but  if  asked  for  the  field  marks,  is  un- 
able to  give  them. 

That  the  brilliant  colors  and  markings  of  birds 
are  of  use  in  courtship  and  that  many  of  them  are 
the  slow  result  of  sexual  selection  seems  to  me  to 
be  a  reasonable  supposition  because  the  male  bird 
in  courtship  always  displays  these  colors  and 
markings  to  the  best  advantage.  Where  two  or 
more  males,  as  is  often  the  case,  are  eagerly 
doing  their  best  in  display  it  would  seem  natural 
that  the  one  who  makes  the  most  display  is  more 


258  BEACH  GRASS 

likely  to  excite  and  win  the  female.  If  this  were 
not  the  case  the  display  would  fall  into  innocuous 
desuetude.  Mr.  William  Brewster  once  told 
me  the  interesting  case  of  a  pair  of  summer 
tanagers  in  the  south  where  he  shot  the  male. 
In  a  short  time  the  female  appeared  with  another 
male.  This  one  also  he  shot  and  so  on  until  he 
had  obtained  three  or  four  of  this  female's 
spouses.  On  careful  examination  of  plumage  it 
was  seen  that  the  most  brilliant  plumage  was 
possessed  by  number  one  and  that  the  brilliancy 
decreased  successively  in  the  others. 

The  fact  that  the  brilliant  plumage  is  assumed 
in  many  birds  for  the  nuptial  season  only,  seems 
to  bear  out  the  im.portance  of  display  for  court- 
ship. The  ducks  go  into  the  eclipse  plumage 
immediately  after  the  courtship  season.  The 
brilliantly  marked  male  wood  duck  and  the  eider 
alike  assume  the  modest  and  quiet  dress  of  the 
female.  This  is  true  of  many  other  birds.  The 
bobolink  and  the  scarlet  tanager,  the  goldfinch 
and  the  myrtle  warbler  doff  their  striking  dress 
in  the  fall  and  appear  in  the  modest  apparel  of  the 
female  and  immature. 


COURTSHIP  IN  BIRDS  2^-g 

Courtship  means  the  act  of  wooing  in  love. 
Whatever  theory  we  accept  we  must  admit  that 
the  male  appears  ^  to  endeavor  to  attract  the 
female  in  one  or  all  of  three  ways :  first  by  a  dis- 
play of  bright  or  striking  colors,  secondly  by 
postures  or  movements  which  accentuate  this  dis- 
play or  call  attention  to  his  agility  or  skill — in 
other  words  by  the  dance  in  its  broadest  sense, 
— and  thirdly  by  sounds  either  vocal  or  instru- 
mental— song  in  its  broadest  sense. 

The  classical  courtship  of  the  peacock  illus- 
trates in  an  extreme  form  the  display  of  color. 
It  also  includes  two  other  factors  of  dance  and 
song.  It  may  well  be  sketched  here  as  an  ex- 
aggerated form  and  epitome  of  our  subject. 

In  the  presence  of  the  hen  and  when  in  an 
amorous  mood  the  peacock  erects  the  stiff  tail 
feathers  which  support  the  marvelous  plumes  that 

1  The  fact  that  peacocks  and  turkey  cocks  delight  in  display- 
ing their  charms  before  people  would  seem  to  show  that  they 
are  conscious  of  the  beauty  of  their  plumage  and  vain  of 
their  ability  to  show  it  off.  When  they  are  displaying  before 
their  hens,  they  must,  in  the  same  way,  be  conscious  of  their 
beauty.  In  other  words,  is  there  not  as  much  reason  in  what 
they  do  as  in  the  strutting  of  the  painted  and  befeathered 
savage?  Are  their  actions  merely  mechanical  and  instinctive? 
I  do  not  think  so. 


26o  BEACH  GRASS 

arise   from   the   back   and   form   the   upper   tail 
coverts.     He  walks  with  mincing  steps,  turning 
this  way  and  then  that,  so  that  his  beauty  may 
be  seen  from  all  points  by  the  hen  who  walks 
carelessly  by.     Seen  from  in  front,  his  blue-green 
head  and  neck  with  black  and  white  face  markings 
and  tufted  plumes  stand  out  like  a  Chinese  jade 
carving  in  the  center  of  a  concave  sea-shell  of 
shimmering  green,  embossed  at  regular  intervals 
with  eyes  of  marvelous  beauty  and  detail.     From 
behind,  the  stiff  gray  tail  feathers  supporting  the 
shell  are  seen  to  be  set  off  below  by  an  abundance 
of  black  and  white  down.     The  wings  of  brown 
and  blue  frame  the  sides.     Suddenly  the  peacock 
turns  and  flashes  the  full  radiance  of  his  beauty 
directly  at  the  hen,  he  vibrates  his  downward 
stretched  wings  and  quivers  his  stiff  tail  feathers 
so  that  they  give  forth  a  sound  of  rattling  reeds. 
The  green  disk  is  thereby  set  all  of  a  tremble  in 
time  with  this  instrumental  music,  the  great  bird 
bows  towards  the  object  of  his  affection,  emits  a 
raucous  cry,  and  the  green,  quivering  sea-shell 
curves  beseechingly  towards  her.     Who  can  resist 
such  fascination  *? 


COURTSHIP  IN  BIRDS  261 

But  all  birds  are  not  so  well  fitted  for  display 
as  the  peacock  who  appears  to  have  reached  the 
very  acme  in  this  direction,  but  a  study  of  some 
of  the  less  brilliant  birds  bears  out,  perhaps 
more  clearly,  the  efforts  of  the  male  in  display. 
The  male  red-winged  blackbird,  when  engaged  in 
feeding  on  the  ground,  appears  as  a  simple  black 
bird.  Sometimes  not  a  trace  of  color  is  visible, 
although  he  may  show  a  narrow  yellow  line  or 
a  somewhat  broader  line  with  red  in  it  on  his 
shoulders.  When  engaged  in  courtship  these 
same  shoulders  blaze  with  scarlet  color.  Not 
only  are  the  surrounding  black  feathers  pushed 
back  so  that  the  epaulets  are  broad  and  con- 
spicuous, but  each  individual  scarlet  feather  is 
erected  and  the  epaulets  are  thick  and  striking. 
Not  only  that,  but  he  flies  slowly  and  directly  to- 
wards the  female  and  the  beauty  spots  are  dis- 
played to  her  eyes,  if  she  will  but  bestow  a  glance 
at  them,  under  the  most  favorable  and  dazzling 
circumstances. 

The  male  eider  swimming  about  and  bowing 
to  the  female  suddenly  rises  up  on  his  tail  in  the 
water  and  flashes  out  the  magnificent  jet  black 


262  BEACH  GRASS 

shield  on  his  belly,  a  color  that  ought  not  to  be 
there  according  to  the  concealing  colorationists. 
In  the  same  way  the  merganser  drake  displays  his 
splendid  white  shirt-front  with  its  delicate  tinge 
of  salmon  pink. 

The  male  bittern,  as  he  strides  about,  extends 
the  fluffy  white  feathers  from  under  the  wings  in 
striking  display.  The  male  blue-headed  vireo 
puffs  out  the  yellow  flank  feathers  till  he  seems 
nearly  double  the  size  of  the  slender  female,  and 
the  myrtle  warbler  droops  his  wings  to  display 
his  yellow  rump  and  puffs  out  the  yellow  and 
black  feathers  on  his  sides. 

The  black  guillemot  as  he  curtesies  to  the 
female  in  the  water  opens  wide  his  mouth  and 
displays  for  her  admiration  the  scarlet  lining. 
The  display  of  the  inflated  orange-colored  neck- 
sake  of  the  heath  hen  is  but  a  small  part  of  the 
remarkable  courtship  display  of  this  bird. 

The  black  duck  and  the  domestic  pigeon  in 
the  ardor  of  courtship  take  short  flights  by  the 
females  and  the  white  lining  of  their  wings  be- 
come momentarily  in  evidence.  The  golden-eye 
drake  displays  from  time  to  time  his  brilliant 


COURTSHIP  IN  BIRDS  263 

orange-yellow  tarsi  and  feet  above  the  water  as 
he  performs  his  song  and  dance  before  the  modest 
duck.  Incidentally,  and  perhaps  accidentally  at 
first,  he  increases  the  display  by  the  spurt  of  water 
caused  by  the  movement  of  the  foot.  In  the 
mxrganser  this  spurt  of  water  has  evidently  be- 
come of  primary  importance  and  is  a  most  con- 
spicuous feature,  but  it  is  plain  that  it  arose  from 
an  endeavor  to  display  a  colored  foot.  From  a 
display  of  color  it  has  become  a  form  of  a 
dance  with  an  added  mechanical  feature.  All 
three  factors  of  courtship  are  so  intricately 
mingled  that  is  not  always  possible  to  treat  of 
a  single  one  alone. 

Secondly  the  dance,  using  the  word  in  the 
broadest  sense,  is  frequently  employed  in  avian 
courtship.  In  the  simplest  form  the  bird  spreads 
its  tail,  slightly  opens  its  wings  and  puffs  out  its 
feathers.  This  may  be  done  rhythmically,  and, 
with  each  motion,  the  song  is  emitted,  for  song 
and  dance  are  almost  always  associated.  The 
bronzed  grackle  illustrates  this  simple  dance  and 
at  the  same  time  very  simple  song.  In  slightly 
more  elaborate  form  the  bird  may  also  bob  its 


264  BEACH  GRASS 

head  and  with  still  more  elaboration  swing  or 
sway  its  whole  body  or  jump  up  and  down.  The 
blue-headed  vireo,  for  example,  bobs  and  bows  in 
addition  to  puffing  out  its  yellow  flanks,  the  cow- 
bird,  besides  puffing  and  spreading,  bobs  its  head 
and  swings  its  whole  body,  as  if  it  were  falling 
forward,  the  bluebird  in  the  excitement  of  court- 
ship jumps  up  and  down  on  its  perch  and  the 
flicker  and  bobs  and  curtesies  in  true  cakewalk 
fashion. 

That  the  dance  does  not  necessarily  mean  leg 
movements  is  exemplified  not  only  by  birds  but 
by  various  primitive  human  races,  where  postur- 
ing and  movements  of  the  head,  arms  and  trunk 
may  constitute  a  large  part  of  the  performance. 
Among  the  ducks  the  movements  of  the  head  and 
neck  are  sometimes  very  striking  and  bizarre. 
The  golden-eye,  besides  performing  with  its  feet 
in  the  way  already  described,  has  a  remarkable 
head  and  neck  dance  and  posturing  in  the  court- 
ship. The  drake  extends  its  head  and  neck 
straight  forward  like  a  bowsprit,  then  vertically 
upwards,  then  backwards  so  that  the  occiput  rests 
on  the  rump,  and  lastly  forward  to  the  normal 


COURTSHIP  IN  BIRDS  265 

position.  Black  ducks,  baldpates,  buffle-hcads 
and  others  make  short  springs  and  flights  from  the 
water;  mallards,  scaups  and  pintails  bob  or  bow 
and  red-breasted  mergansers  courtesy  with  a 
swinging  dip  of  the  whole  body.  Bowing  and 
courtesying  are  as  common  in  avian  as  in  human 
courtship. 

Among  our  birds  the  gannet  has  perhaps  the 
most  elaborate  dance,  one  that  in  completeness 
and  in  many  of  its  features  suggests  the  dance  of 
the  Layson  albatross  so  well  described  by  Pro- 
fessor W.  K.  Fisher.  ^  It  is  worth  while  describ- 
ing this  dance  of  the  gannets  in  detail,  for,  as  far 
as  I  can  discover,  there  is  no  description  of  it  in 
any  American  ornithology  and  I  have  found  no 
mention  of  it  in  the  pages  of  the  "Nuttall  Bulle- 
tin" or  'The  Auk."  Mr.  P.  A.  Taverner  "  is  the 
only  one  in  this  country  who  has  referred  to  this 
dance  as  far  as  I  know,  and  his  description  is  very 
brief  and  omits  many  of  the  most  interesting  de- 
tails. He  appropriately  calls  it  ''a  sort  of  con- 
ventionalized   ritual."      A   fuller   description    is 

1  Auk,  XXI,    1904,  pp.  8-20. 

2  The    Gannets    of    Bonaventure    Island,    Ottawa    Naturalist, 
XXXII,   1918,   p.  24. 


266  BEACH  GRASS 

given  by  Mr.  J.  H.  Gumey  ^  in  his  monograph  on 
the  gannet.  He  says :  "This  sort  of  thing  can  be 
seen  with  variations,  any  fine  day  in  July,  on  the 
Bass  Rock,  but  it  cannot  be  the  affection  of  court- 
ship, because  the  courting  season  is  passed." 
He  ascribes  it  to  the  affection  of  the  gannets  for 
each  other. 

The  bowing  and  posturing  and  other  strange 
antics  of  the  Layson  albatross  is  spoken  of  by 
Fisher  as  "a  curious  dance,  or  perhaps 
more  appropriately  a  Cakewalk,"  and  he  goes  on 
to  say:  "This  game  or  whatever  one  may  wish 
to  call  it  very  likely  originated  in  past  time  dur- 
ing the  courting  season,  but  it  certainly  has  long 
since  lost  any  such  significance.  I  believe  the 
birds  now  practise  these  antics  for  the  pure  fun 
they  derive."  These  remarks  I  believe  apply  ex- 
actly to  the  dance  of  the  gannets.  I  spent  many 
hours  one  summer  under  most  favorable  con- 
ditions near  the  great  gannet  nesting  ledges  on 
the  Cliffs  of  Bonaventure  Island,  P.  Q.,  and  I 
saw  the  dance  repeated  by  hundreds  of  pairs 
many  times,  and  I  came  to  the  same  conclusion 

iThe   Gannet,  p.  377. 


COURTSHIP  IN  BIRDS  267 

that  Fisher  did  in  the  ease  of  the  Layson 
albatross,  namely  that  it  was  originally  a  eourt- 
ship  dance  and  that  it  was  continued  from  habit 
and  from  joy  of  it,  in  the  same  way  that  the  song 
sparrow  continues  to  sing  long  after  the  nuptial 
season. 

Let  me  describe  a  typical  performance:  As 
the  sexes  are  alike  in  plumage  they  cannot  be  dis- 
tinguished apart.  One  of  them,  we  will  assume 
it  is  the  male,  is  swinging  around  in  great  circles 
on  rigidly  outstretched  and  motionless  wings. 
He  passes  within  a  few  yards  of  me  and  swings 
towards  a  shelf  crowded  with  birds  brooding  their 
downy,  black-faced  young.  Alighting  on  the 
edge  he  elbows  his  way  along  the  ledge,  notwith- 
standing the  angry  looks,  the  black  mouths  sud- 
denly opened  and  the  vicious  pecks  of  his  neigh- 
bors. All  of  these  he  returns  in  kind.  Arrived 
at  his  nest,  he  is  enthusiastically  greeted  by  his 
mate,  who,  disregarding  the  young  bird  beneath 
her,  rises  up  to  do  her  part  in  the  dance.  The 
birds  stand  face  to  face,  the  wings  slightly  raised 
and  opened,  the  tails  elevated  and  spread.  They 
bow  towards  each  other,  then  raise  their  heads 


268  BEACH  GRASS 

and  wave  their  bills  as  if  they  were  whetting  these 
powerful  instruments,  or  as  if  they  were  perform- 
ing the  polite  preliminaries  of  a  fencing  bout. 
From  time  to  time  this  process  is  interrupted  as 
they  bow  to  each  other,  and  appear  to  caress  each 
other  as  each  dips  its  pale  blue  bill  and  cream- 
colored  head  first  to  one  side  and  then  to  the 
other  of  its  mate's  snowy  breast.  With  unbated 
enthusiasm  and  ardor,  the  various  actions  of  this 
curious  and  loving  dance  are  repeated  again  and 
again  and  often  continue  for  several  minutes. 
After  the  dance  the  pair  preen  themselves  and 
each  other,  or  the  one  first  at  the  nest  flies  away 
and  the  new  arrival  waddles  around  so  as  to  get 
back  of  the  nestling,  and  the  strange  process  of 
feeding  takes  place. 

This  dance  is  not  only  performed  by  pairs  as 
just  described,  but  not  infrequently  individuals 
perform  a  pas  seul,  it  may  be  because  he  or  she 
is  wearied  with  waiting  for  its  mate.  The  wings 
are  slightly  raised  and  opened,  the  tail  elevated 
and  spread,  the  bill  pointed  vertically  upwards 
and  waved  aloft,  then  dipped  to  one  side  under 
the  half  open  wing  and  then  to  the  other,  the  bill 


COURTSHIP  IN  BIRDS  269 

raised  and  waved  again  and  so  on  over  and  over 
again.  Owing  to  the  great  volume  of  sound 
from  the  ledges  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  any 
individual  performer,  and  I  was  unable  to  tell  at 
what  point  in  the  dance  and  to  what  extent  the 
song  was  important.  The  sound  is  like  that  of 
a  thousand  rattling  looms  in  a  great  factor} ,  a 
rough,  vibrating,  pulsing  sound — car-ra^  car-ra, 
car-ra. 

The  movements  in  the  air  that  may  or  ma}-  not 
be  accompanied  with  song  may  be  classed  in  this 
division  of  the  dance.  The  bobolink,  rising  in 
irregular  circles,  or  progressing  in  a  horizontal 
plane  on  rapidly  vibrated  down-curved  wings,  is 
expressing  his  amorous  feelings  by  dance  as  well 
as  by  song.  His  flight  often  concludes  by  a 
rapid  descent  with  wings  pointing  obliquely  up- 
ward, forming  a  display  by  posture  and  motion — 
in  themselves  forms  of  dance.  The  ardor  of 
courtship  bears  many  a  bird  aloft,  and  he  ex- 
presses his  feelings  with  his  wings  as  well  as  with 
his  voice.  One  may  name  not  only  the  oven-binl 
and  the  Maryland  yellow-throat,  the  bobolink 
and  the  orchard  oriole,  the  semipalmated  sand- 


270  BEACH  GRASS 

piper  and  the  upland  plover,  the  horned  lark 
and  the  pipit,  but  many  other  birds  in  this  cate- 
gory, some  of  which  like  the  song  sparrow,  sing 
chiefly  from  a  perch.  The  horned  lark  mounts 
silently  to  a  great  height  and  pours  forth  his 
song  in  long  periods,  sometimes  out  of  sight  in 
the  low-lying  clouds.  The  pipit  sings  as  he  as- 
cends nearly  vertically  and,  arrived  at  the  summit 
of  his  ambitions,  descends  quickly,  still  singing, 
to  the  earth. 

All  birds  who  indulge  in  flight  song  are  apt  to 
quiver  their  wings  rapidly  in  their  ecstasy. 
Sometimes  this  motion  of  wings  becomes  of  pri- 
mary importance  and  the  bird  flies  with  quiver- 
ing wings  but  voiceless,  or  even  vibrates  his 
wings  rapidly  from  a  perch.  This  sometimes 
happens  in  birds  that  ordinarily  sing  at  the  same 
time.  I  have  seen  it,  for  example,  in  the  song 
sparrow.  The  pheasant  quivers  his  wings  rapidly 
but  nearly  noiselessly,  then  emits  his  vocal  crow 
to  be  followed  by  a  loud  clapping  of  the  wings. 
The  ptarmigan  vibrates  his  wings  rapidly  in 
flight  and  calls  at  the  same  time;  the  spruce 
partridge  flies  from  a  tree  stub  to  the  ground  with 


COURTSHIP  IN  BIRDS  271 

audibly  vibrating  wings,  while  the  ruffed  grouse 
stands  on  a  log  and,  by  the  rapid  whirring  of  his 
wings,  emits  his  characteristic  "drumming." 
That  this  drumming  is  evolved  from  a  flight 
song  and  that  there  was  once  a  vocal  part  of  the 
performance,  I  have  little  doubt.  These  ex- 
amples show  the  stages  in  the  evolution. 

The  loud  clapping  together  of  the  wings  be- 
hind the  back  in  domestic  pigeons  during  flight 
and  their  habit  of  soaring  with  wings  obliquely 
upwards,  although  common  at  all  times,  are  most 
marked  in  the  courtship  season  and  are  probably 
of  courtship  origin.  The  V-shaped  pose  of  the 
tail-feathers  of  the  bronzed  grackle  is  probably 
of  the  same  nature,  for  it  is  discarded  in  mid- 
summer. 

Both  the  Savannah  and  vesper  sparrow  stand 
or  walk  on  the  ground  and  elevate  and  sometimes 
vibrate  their  wings  rapidly  above  their  backs. 
They  also  fly  slowly  a  short  distance  above  the 
ground  with  head  and  tail  up  and  wings  rapidly 
fluttering  and  deliver  their  song. 

The  rapid  headlong  plunges  of  the  nighthawk 
may  be  classed  as  a  display  of  motion,  a  form  of 


272  BEACH  GRASS 

the  dance.  Incidentally,  and  perhaps  accident- 
ally at  first,  a  loud  booming  sound  is  produced  by 
the  rush  of  air  through  the  wing  feathers.  This 
instrumental  music  is  now  the  important  feature, 
although  the  dance  is  by  no  means  a  negligible 
one.  The  raven  turns  a  rolling-over  somersault 
in  the  air,  and  the  marsh  hawk  plunges  from  a 
great  height,  loops  the  loop  or  turns  a  sidewise 
somersault.  The  chat  with  dangling  legs  dances 
crazily  about  in  the  air,  and  the  kingbird  executes 
a  series  of  zig-zag  and  erratic  flights,  emitting  at 
the  same  time  a  harsh  double  scream.  This  is 
a  true  courtship  flight  song  but  it  is  neither  grace- 
ful to  our  eyes  or  pleasing  to  our  ears.  The 
taste  of  the  kingbird  in  these  matters  appears  to 
us  to  be  poor. 

The  impossibility  of  treating  in  turn  only  one 
of  the  primary  divisions — display,  dance  and 
song  is  well  shown  by  these  examples.  The  case 
of  the  courtship  of  the  heath  hen  is  still  more 
difficult  for  all  three  factors  are  inextricably 
mingled.  I  have  already  alluded  to  the  display 
of  neck-sacks  of  this  bird,  orange  in  color  and 
shape,  a  very  striking  and  beautiful  feature,  but 


COURTSHIP  IN  BIRDS  273 

secondary  or  incidental  to  the  production  of  son^ 
to  be  described  later.  The  erection  of  the  neck- 
wings  which  ordinarily  help  cover  the  deflated 
neck-sacks,  the  spreading  and  erection  of  the  tail, 
the  vibration  of  the  down-stretched  wings,  the 
pirouetting  and  turning  of  the  body  and  the 
rapid  stamping  of  the  feet  in  this  species  are  all 
forms  of  the  dance. 

Lastly,  in  this  brief  review  and  rough  classi- 
fication of  the  courtship  actions  of  birds,  the  song 
is  to  be  considered.  By  song  I  do  not  mean 
necessarily  a  melody  or  musical  strain  pleasing 
to  human  ears — although  many  of  these  pro- 
duced by  the  higher  species  of  birds  are  extremely 
pleasing — but  any  sound  which  is  customarily 
connected  with  courtship.  Courtship  song,  as 
thus  understood,  may  be  either  vocal  or  instru- 
mental. The  rattling  of  the  stiff  tail  feathers 
of  the  peacock  and  the  rolling  drum  made  by 
the  wings  of  the  ruffed  grouse  fall  into  the  instru- 
mental category.  The  rapid  stamping  of  the 
feet  by  the  heath  hen  produces  a  ratta-tat-tat 
like  that  made  on  a  kettle  drum.  The  tooting 
sound,  similar  to  that  made  by  blowing  across 


274  BEACH  GRASS 

the  top  of  a  bottle,  produced  by  the  neck-sacks 
of  this  same  bird,  should,  I  suppose,  be  classed 
as  instrumental  song.  The  sounds  made  by  the 
clapping  together  behind  the  back  of  the  wings 
of  the  domestic  pigeon,  of  the  clapping  on  the 
sides  of  the  pheasant  are,  of  course,  in  the  instru- 
mental class. 

The  woodcock  in  his  wonderful  courtship 
flight,  as  he  ascends  straight  up  in  the  dim  light 
of  early  morning  or  late  evening,  gives  forth  loud 
sounds  that  cease  whenever  the  bird  sets  his 
wings  and  momentarily  soars — instrumental 
sounds  made  apparently  by  his  wings.  During 
the  last  part  of  the  ascent  and  during  the  descent 
he  gives  forth  sweeter  vocal  notes  or  whistles. 
Before  he  is  again  on  the  wing  he  emits  at  in- 
tervals loud  vocal  peents,  preceded  by  faint 
gulping  sounds  accompanied  by  a  puffing  out  of 
the  body  and  slight  raising  of  the  wings. 

The  Wilson  snipe  flies  about  in  his  ecstatic 
courtship  when  the  light  is  so  poor  that  it  is 
difficult  to  observe  his  flight,  and  sounds  arise — 
quavering  or  bleating  in  character — which  are 
believed  to  be  instrumental  in  their  nature,  due 


COURTSHIP  IX  BIRDS  275 

to  the  passage  of  the  air  through  the  stiff  primary 
feathers  of  the  wings,  or,  as  some  believe, 
through    the    outer    feathers    of    the    tail.     The 


*to 


loud  booming  or  whirring  sound  made  by  the 
nighthawk  in  his  spectacular  plunges  has  already 
been  mentioned,  an  instrumental  music  of  cu- 
rious character. 

The  drumming  of  the  flicker  on  a  hollow  stub 
or  on  a  roof  or  chimney-pot  is  clearly  to  be 
classed  as  instrumental  music.  I  have  heard  this 
bird  interrupt  his  spring  song  to  drum  and  later 
continue  with  his  vocal  music. 

The  song  of  courtship  produced  by  the  vocal 
organs  of  the  bird  varies  from  the  rasping, 
vibrating  note  of  the  golden-eye  or  the  aa-ou  of 
the  eider,  emitted  at  the  height  of  the  dance  and 
display,  the  harsh  scream  of  the  kingbird  or  the 
tiS'ik  of  the  Henslow's  sparrow  to  the  clear, 
plaintive  whistle  of  the  white-throated  sparrow, 
and  the  serene,  spiritual  hymn  of  the  hermit 
thrush.  While  the  simpler,  more  primitive  songs 
are  given  forth  only  during  courtship  excite- 
ment, it  is  evident  that  many,  especially  the  more 
complicated  and  cesthetic  ones,  although  at  their 


276  BEACH  GRASS 

best  and  sometimes  elaborated  or  extended  under 
courtship  excitement,  are  often  continued  and  re- 
peated for  the  mere  enjoyment  of  the  performer 
in  his  own  music.  The  autumnal  recrudescence 
of  the  amatory  instinct,  often  displayed  in  song, 
is  well-known. 

The  subject  of  bird  song  is  one  apart  by  itself, 
and  I  have  alluded  to  it  in  this  brief  manner 
merely  to  round  out  the  classification,  made  in  the 
beginning  of  this  paper,  of  display;  dance  and 
song — the  important  features  of  bird  courtship. 


CHy\PTEH  XII 

On  Certain  Humanities 

^'The  most  of  our  kind  are  not  naturalists  hut  humanists'' 

— Shaler 

"The   proper  study    of   mankind   is   man' 

—Pope 

A  REGION  of  seashore,  marsh  and  dune 
attracts  certain  forms  of  human  activi- 
ties, all,  owing  to  the  setting,  more  or 
less  picturesque.  The  cutting  of  the  salt  hay 
and  the  life  of  the  clammer  which  I  have  de- 
scribed in  "Sand  Dunes  and  Salt  Marshes"  are  of 
this  nature.  The  profession  of  eeler,  of  herring- 
torcher,  of  sander  and  of  light-keeper  belong 
peculiarly  to  this  region,  and  of  these  and  of 
their  predecessors  I  would  say  a  few  words  here. 
Before  the  white  man  came,  these  dunes  and 
marshes  and  the  adjoining  fertile  land  were  fre- 
quented by  the  Indian.  His  was  an  interesting 
humanity.     In   the  old   histories  of   this   region 

277 


278  BEACH  GRASS 

much  is  said  of  the  Indians,  of  their  hunting  and 
fishing,  and  of  their  cornfields  planted  on  the 
hillsides,  cleared  by  fire  of  the  forest.  Without 
recourse  to  historical  documents  one  can  still  read 
the  record  of  their  activities  here.  In  the  dunes, 
in  the  marsh  islands  and  on  many  a  hillside  close 
to  the  sea  or  to  an  estuary,  deposits  of  clam 
shells  are  exposed  by  the  blowing  of  the  sand, 
the  cutting  of  streams  or  the  turn  of  the  plough- 
share. 

The  study  of  these  deposits,  or  kitchen  mid- 
dens, is  a  long  one  and  full  of  interest.  I  can 
imagine  that  an  independent  gold  or  diamond 
miner  might  be  loath  to  stop  work,  thinking  that 
the  next  turn  of  the  pick  would  reveal  a  price- 
less nugget  or  gem.  In  the  same  way  one  who 
digs  in  a  shell  heap  has  always  the  vision  before 
him  of  a  prize.  These  prizes  would  appear  very 
trivial  to  a  gold  miner,  but  may  cause  a  great 
thrill  of  satisfaction  to  a  naturalist.  They  con- 
sist largely  in  bones  and  fragments  of  bones,  and 
even  by  a  very  small  piece  of  bone  one  may  re- 
construct in  imagination  some  most  interesting 
creature.     I  have  found,   for  example,  in  shell 


ON  CERTAIN  HUMANITIES       279 

heaps  on  the  Maine  coast,  many  bones,  including; 
those  of  the  wild  turkey  and  the  great  auk,  and, 
here  at  Ipswich,  the  bones  of  deer  and  fox  and 
seal,  of  wading  birds  and  ducks  and  of  many 
fishes.  The  larger  bones  had  all  been  split  u{) 
for  the  marrow,  and  the  smaller  bones  had  their 
spongy  ends  missing  as  if  they  had  been  eaten  by 
dogs. 

One  discovery  led  to  an  amusing  error.  In  a 
shell  heap  many  years  ago  I  unearthed  or  ''un- 
shelled,"  one  might  say,  what  apeared  to  be  the 
upper  section  of  a  bird's  bill,  but  it  had  an  un- 
usual polish,  foreign  to  any  of  our  birds'  bills. 
In  shape  and  size  it  most  closely  resembled  that 
of  a  royal  tern.  I  took  it  to  several  specialists 
at  Harvard,  and  each  repudiated  it  in  turn. 
The  ornithologist  said  it  was  not  a  bird's  bill, 
the  mammologist  that  it  was  no  part  of  a  four- 
legged  creature,  and  the  expert  in  crabs  said  it 
was  no  part  of  a  crab.  I  therefore  sent  it  to 
Washington,  the  fountain  head  of  all  knowl- 
edge, and  word  came  back  that  it  was  the  bill 
of  a  royal  tern,  certified  to  by  several  well-known 
ornithologists.     Fortunately  I  did  not  rush  into 


28o  BEACH  GRASS 

print  the  interesting  fact  that  a  royal  tern  had 
been  found  so  far  north,  for  I  was  not  satisfied. 
There  was  a  peculiar  polish  in  the  enamel  coat- 
ing that  "bill."  A  few  years  later  I  was  look- 
ing at  a  dogfish  thrown  up  by  the  waves  on  the 
beach,  and,  on  examining  the  spur  or  tooth  on 
the  dorsal  fin,  I  saw  at  once  that  it  was  my 
"royal  tern's  bill."  Then  I  published  "A  case  of 
mistaken  diagnosis"  but  naturally  did  not  dis- 
close the  names  of  the  experts  in  Washington. 
I  shall  never  be  deceived  by  a  dogfish's  dorsal 
spur  again. 

Other  prizes  are  the  work  of  Indians.  Bits 
of  rude  pottery — potsherds — are  not  uncommon, 
some  of  them  ornamented  by  a  pointed  stick  or 
by  the  impression  of  a  twisted  cord.  Flint  chips 
and  stone  implements  are  rare.  I  have  found  a 
few  bone  awls  and  needles,  some  of  which  resem- 
ble closely  those  made  by  the  Eskimos  at  the  pres- 
ent day.  I  have  also  found  pieces  of  bone  cut 
or  notched.  One  had  eight  distinct  notches, 
perhaps  a  record  of  enemies  slain,  or,  may  be,  of 
wild  geese  captured. 

At  Treadwell's  Island,  near  the  mouth  of  the 


ON  CERTAIN  HUMANITIES  281 
Ipswich  River,  there  are  extensive  shell  heaps 
several  feet  thick,  attesting  the  prolonged  or 
numerous  visits  by  bands  of  Indians  to  this 
region.  Here  many  of  the  shells  are  those  of 
the  oyster,  a  mollusk  long  since  extinct  in  this 
region. 

One  can  picture  the  summer  camp,  the  skin- 
covered  wigwams,  the  bark  canoes  drawn  up  on 
the  sandy  beach  of  the  estuary,  the  feasts  of 
fish,  clams  and  oysters  and  other  products  of  the 
sea,  of  roasted  ears  of  Indian  corn,  of  sea-bird's 
eggs  and  of  the  flesh  of  birds  and  seals  and  other 
animals  caught  in  snares  and  traps,  or  slain  by 
stealth  with  stone-tipped  spears  and  arrows.  It 
is  probable  that  many  of  the  Indians  in  winter 
moved  back  into  the  more  densely  forested  in- 
terior, partly  for  shelter  from  the  gales  which 
sweep  the  sand  dunes  and  marshes  of  the  coast 
and  partly  for  the  better  hunting  and  trapping. 
This  is  the  custom  today  of  the  Mountaineer 
Indians  of  Labrador. 

It  is  evident  that  the  Indians  loved  this  region 
of  dune  and  marsh,  sea  and  estuary  and  made 
full  use  of  the  bounteous  repast  spread   with  in 


282  BEACH  GRASS 

its  borders.  Would  that  white  man  had  been  as 
frugal  at  that  table  I  Oysters  would  still 
abound,  shad  and  salmon  and  trout  and  other 
fish  would  throng  the  estuaries  and  rivers,  sea- 
birds  in  great  multitudes  would  lay  their  eggs  on 
the  sandy  shores,  and  great  auks,  Labrador  ducks, 
Eskimo  curlews,  wild  turkeys  and  wild  pigeons 
would  still  be  with  us. 

As  one  paddles  up  the  creeks  at  low  tide,  fol- 
lowing the  winding  channels,  one  is  apt  to  see 
from  time  to  time  a  swift  moving  shadow,  dart- 
ing in  and  out  of  the  waving  forest  of  eelgrass. 
Sometimes  the  shadow  remains  long  enough  to 
record  itself  on  the  retina  as  an  eel.  The  flesh 
of  the  eel  is  firm  and  rich  with  fat,  and  is  much 
sought  after  by  those  who  have  .learned  to  like  it 
and  have  no  psychological  objection  to  its  snake- 
like form.  In  these  waters  it  is  caught  by  lines 
baited  with  great  masses  of  worms,  it  is  speared 
at  low  tide  with  barbed  tridents,  and  is  entrapped 
in  eel-pots — cylindrical  affairs  with  funnel- 
shaped  openings  into  which  the  descent  is  easy 
but  the  return  is  impossible  to  creatures  of  the  in- 
telligence of  the  eel. 


ON  CERTAIN  HUMANITIES       283 

For  many  years  an  eel-catcher  has  spent  his 
summers  in  the  pursuit  of  his  craft,  living  in  a 
shanty  in  the  dunes  at  Ipswich  near  Wigwam 
Hill,  and  later  at  Hog  Island.  He  had  followed 
the  sea  as  cook,  fisherman,  and  skipper.  Eighteen 
of  these  were  spent  in  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence, 
but  only  once  did  he  set  foot  on  Labrador  soil 
and  that  was  at  Little  Meccatina  Island,  and  \\v 
stayed  there  only  five  minutes,  he  said,  because  he 
was  chilled  by  the  barren  aspect  of  the  country 
and  eaten  up  by  mosquitoes.  Born  on  January 
10,  1828,  Captain  Thurlow  had  retired  from  the 
sea  for  many  years  and  has  lived  in  Newburyport, 
but  every  summer  he  gets  restless  and,  in 
spite  of  his  daughter's  protests,  would  go  to 
Ipswich  and  take  up  the  life  of  an  eel-catcher  and 
clammer,  living  alone  in  his  shanty. 

Ordered  to  vacate  his  summer  home  in  the 
dunes,  where  he  was  only  a  squatter,  he  procured 
a  dozen  casks,  and,  with  the  friendly  help  of 
some  Italian  workmen,  moved  his  house  to  the 
beach  and  securely  lashed  it  to  the  casks.  Tak- 
ing advantage  of  the  fiood  tide  he  launched  his 
ark,  and,  with  the  aid  of  a  long  hawser,  a  couj^Ie 


284  BEACH  GRASS 

of  anchors  and  the  ebb,  he  "swung  her  into  the 
stream  and  across  to  Hog  Island."  Here  he  put 
skids  and  rollers  under  it  and  a  hay-maker  kindly 
hitched  his  team  to  the  land  and  water  craft 
and  "in  fifteen  minutes  hauled  her  up  to  a  safe 
anchorage  above  the  highest  tides."  "I  was 
afraid  I  would  make  a  mess  of  the  job"  he  said, 
"but  I  didn't  and  it  didn't  cost  me  a  cent,  for  the 
hay-maker  wouldn't  take  anything  for  his  help, 
and  I  think  he  was  pleased  by  some  eels  I  gave 
him."  A  strenuous  job  for  even  a  young  man 
to  tackle  single  handed,  and  he  almost  ninety  I 
But  he  put  it  through  without  a  hitch  and  "didn't 
make  a  mess  of  it  I"  There  is  courage  and  vigor 
and  sand,  say  I,  born  of  life  on  the  sea  and  in  the 
dunes ! 

At  the  age  of  ninety-two  he  came  as  usual  to 
his  shanty  on  Hog  Island.  He  had  rowed  and 
sailed  alone  in  his  dory  from  Newburyport 
going  down  the  Merrimac  River,  through  Plum 
Island  River  and  Sound,  up  the  Ipswich  River 
and  Fox  Creek,  and  finally  through  the  canal  to 
Castle-neck  River  and  so  down  to  his  beach  at 
Hog  Island.     He  told  me  he  had  a  cough  in  the 


1 

ON  CERTAIN  HUMANITIES       285 

spring  that  he  could  not  get  rid  of,  but  in  a  tew 
days  at  the  beach  the  cough  had  k^ft  him.  He 
was  still  erect  and  vigorous,  a  hnc-looking  man 
with  clean-cut  features,  snowy  hair  and  beard. 
He  was  digging  a  basket  of  clams  before  his  door. 
Few  men  even  twenty  years  younger  could  have 
straightened  up  as  quickly  or  at  all  after  assum- 
ing the  position  of  the  clammerl  He  visited 
his  eel-pots  in  his  old  weather-beaten  dory,  us- 
ing a  spritsail  whenever  the  wind  was  fair,  his 
own  sinewy  arms  pulling  at  the  oars  a  short 
fisherman's  stroke  when  the  air  fell  calm.  I 
trust  the  wind  and  tide  are  favorable  with  him 
now,  and  that  he  may  long  continue  to  come  an 
eeling  at  Ipswich. 

On  a  pleasant  summer  day  when  the  wind  and 
tide  are  fair,  one  may  be  so  fortunate  as  to  see 
an  old  high-floating  schooner  sailing  up  the  mouth 
of  the  Ipswich  River  between  the  long  bar  and 
the  beach,  or  a  similar  craft  negotiating  the  more 
dangerous  passage  into  the  Essex  River.  The 
destination  in  the  former  case  is  the  southern  end 
of  Plum  Island  facing  the  sound,  in  the  latter 
the  southern  end  of  Ipswich  beach  and  dunes  on 


286  BEACH  GRASS 

the  inner  side.  A  week  or  so  later  the  same 
schooners,  taking  advantage  of  the  ebb  tide,  are 
departing,  but  now  sunk  almost  to  the  level  of 
their  decks.  With  a  fresh  northwest  wind  they 
push  a  great  wave  before  their  broad  bows  and 
disappear  from  sight  around  the  end  of  Cape 
Ann,  south-bound  for  Boston.  They  are  sand 
schooners  and  their  captains  and  crew  are  spoken 
of  as  Sanders. 

Captain  Charley  commands  the  schooner  Ed- 
ward S.  Eveleth,  "built  with  copper  fastenings," 
for  the  Gloucester  fisheries  forty  years  ago.  The 
captain  has  been  a  sander  for  over  fifty  years — he 
began  the  year  Lincoln  was  shot — and  his  father 
for  fifty  years  had  followed  the  same  profession. 
His  father  said  before  he  died  that,  in  spite  of 
all  his  labors,  there  was  more  sand  at  Ipswich 
beach  than  there  was  when  he  began,  which  con- 
firms my  own  studies  and  observations  that  the 
beach  is  extending  southward.  The  remains  of 
an  iron  spindle  on  a  rock  now  exposed  on  the 
beach  at  low  tide,  was,  when  Captain  Charley  be- 
gan, separated  from  the  beach  by  a  good  channel. 

The  sand  schooner  selects  a  steep  part  of  a 


ON  CERTAIN  HUMANITIES       287 

protected  beach,  comes  up  to  it  broadside  at  hi^^h 
tide  and  makes  fast  by  means  of  hawsers  and 
kedges  both  bow  and  stern.  A  long  gangphmk 
is  run  out  and  extended  to  the  s{)ot  from  which 
the  sand  is  dug.  Men  fill  broad  and  capacious 
wheelbarrows  and  run  them  up  to  the  deck  of  the 
vessel,  where  they  dump  the  loose  sand  into  the 
hold.  ''It  is  the  heaviest  cargo  there  is,"  said 
Captain  Charley,  "and  very  dead;  bricks  are  live 
in  comparison." 

Sanders  ply  their  vocation  in  winter  as  well  as 
summer.  With  a  fair  wind  they  can  make  Bos- 
ton in  seven  hours.  Captain  Charley  left  Bos- 
ton on  Christmas  in  1917  and  did  not  get  back 
until  the  middle  of  March.  For  most  of  the 
time  he  was  frozen  up.  ''Why  anybody  wants 
to  visit  the  beach  and  sand  hills  I  can't  see,"  said 
the  Captain.  "If  I  didn't  have  to,  I  wouldn't 
stay  there  longer  than  one  minute."  ^ 

1  Alas !  the  Edivard  S.  Eveleth  has  found  a  grave  in  the 
sand  and  the  flowing  sea.  On  an  October  day  in  1922,  after 
she  had  been  filled  with  sand,  a  heavy  sea,  rolling  around 
the  point  of  the  dunes,  rushed  over  her  decks,  and  she  turned 
on  her  beam  ends  at  the  edge  of  the  beach.  Each  tide 
sucked  her  deeper  into  the  sand.  But  it  is  far  better  that  she 
ended  her  days  thus  than  that  she  sank  at  sea  with  loss  of  life. 


288  BEACH  GRASS 

Herring  torching  is  a  picturesque  pursuit.  In 
the  fall  of  the  year  young  herring  abound  off  the 
beaches  and  in  the  estuaries  of  this  sandy  region. 
Herring,  like  moths  are  fascinated  by  a  flame,  and 
crowd  the  waters  near  a  torch  carried  on  a  boat. 
In  the  old  days,  the  flaming  knots  of  pitch  pine, 
— ^candlewood  as  it  was  called — were  used  as  a 
light.  At  the  present  day  an  iron  basket  is  fixed 
over  the  bow  of  the  boat  and  fed  by  hand  with 
masses  of  cotton  soaked  in  kerosene.  A  still 
greater  improvement  is  a  wire  netting  cylinder 
filled  with  asbestos,  supplied  with  kerosene  from 
a  compressed  air  tank.  Motor  boats  have  taken 
the  place  of  dories  propelled  by  oars.  On  almost 
any  favorable  night  in  October  and  November 
one  may  see  the  mouths  of  the  Ipswich  and 
Essex  rivers  dotted  with  moving  lights. 

It  is  cold  hard  work  but  full  of  excitement  and 
fisherman's  luck.  Some  nights  only  a  few  fish 
are  seen,  on  other  nights  the  men  are  obliged  to 
desist,  for  the  boat  can  hold  no  more.  The  her- 
ring are  piled  high  above  the  gunwales.  The 
torch  illuminates  the  water  for  a  few  feet  around 
the  bow  of  the  boat — beyond  is  a  wall  of  dark- 


THE   LAST   OF   THE      EDWARD   S.    EVELETH 


THE   SANDER 


ON  CERTAIN  HUMANITIES       289 

ness.  One  can  often  see  down  several  feet,  to 
the  sandy  bottom  through  the  clear  water. 

When  fish  are  sighted,  the  watch  calls  to  the 
skipper  who  at  once  slows  down  the  engine. 
Sometimes  a  few  herring  are  seen,  sometimes  im- 
mense numbers  of  them,  all  swimming  forward  to- 
wards the  light.  The  dip-net,  with  a  hoop  about 
three  feet  in  diameter,  is  quickly  plunged  just  be- 
low the  surface,  as  near  the  bow  as  may  be,  swept 
rapidly  aft,  and,  with  the  help  of  the  ''turner" 
who  seizes  the  hoop,  it  is  pulled  up  and  its  con- 
tents emptied  into  the  boat.  Sometimes  the  net 
contains  only  two  or  three,  sometimes  it  is  tilled 
with  herring  from  a  few  inches  in  length — sar- 
dines— up  to  fishes  a  foot  long.  Fifteen  barrels 
of  herring  is  a  heavy  load  to  dip  out  in  one  night, 
but  the  fisherman  is  well  repaid. 

The  life  a  light-keeper  tends  to  independence 
and  originality  of  character.  Many  of  the 
keepers  have  followed  the  sea  at  one  time  or  an- 
other and  the  sea  exerts  a  broadening  iniiuence 
in  life.  In  the  old  days  at  Ipswich,  Captain 
Ellsworth  held  sway  for  nearly  half  a  century, 
and  his  daughter  tended  the  range  light  when  the 


290  BEACH  GRASS 

journey  over  the  sands  was  too  much  for  the  old 
man.  His  was  a  kindly  and  genial  personality. 
The  picture  of  his  ruddy  cheeks  and  twinkling 
blue  eyes  I  shall  always  cherish.  Since  his  death 
over  twenty  years  ago  there  has  been  a  succession 
of  light-keepers  at  Ipswich,  with  all  of  whom  I 
have  made  acqaintance.  There  is  always  a 
warm  welcome  in  their  cosy  kitchen  no  matter 
how  cold  and  blustering  the  day  outside.  The 
model  housewife  might  well  envy  the  housekeep- 
ing of  a  United  States  light-keeper.  It  mattered 
not  how  many  children  they  had,  nor  the  unex- 
pectedness of  the  visit,  one  always  found  the 
house  as  neat  as  wax,  the  paint  immaculate — 
not  a  speck  of  dirt  or  dust  anywhere.  The  men 
who  occupied  this  station  in  the  last  twenty  years 
have  all  had  interesting  characteristics,  and  in 
my  brief  visits  on  cold  winter's  days  I  have 
learned  many  things.  One  of  our  best  keepers 
was  George  Howard,  an  all  round  man,  a  jack-of- 
all-trades,  constantly  studying  to  improve  him- 
self, later  the  head  light-keeper  at  the  important 
station  of  Thatcher's  Island  off  Cape  Ann. 

His  father,  Captain  Alfred  A.  Howard,  whose 


ON  CERTAIN  HUMANITIES       291 

stay  at  Ipswich  was  cut  short  by  advancement  to 
a  better  station,  I  greatly  miss.  He  enjoyed  his 
little  joke  and  he  also  appreciated  it  in  others. 
In  the  early  days  of  the  war  I  had  dropped  in  to 
see  him  and  happened  to  be  wearing  a  pair  of 
wristers  I  had  brought  from  Labrador  that  were 
intended  for  the  Indian  trade.  They  were  in 
stripes  of  vivid  blue  and  red  and  yellow  and  white 
and  I  remarked  that  I  called  them  my  ''camouflage 
wristers."  "Oh,"  said  Mrs.  Howard,  "do  tell 
me  what  you  mean  by  camouflage,  I  have  seen 
that  word  in  the  papers  lately."  I  explained 
that  vessels  were  painted  in  alternate  stripes  of 
various  colors,  and,  at  a  distance  on  the  sea,  it 
was  difficult  or  impossible  to  see  them,  and  that 
this  was  called  camouflage.  "And,"  I  added 
"when  I  wear  these  wristers  and  get  off  about 
three  hundred  yards,  you  can't  see  me."  Her 
face  expressed  great  astonishment  at  this  remark- 
able information,  but  the  Captain's  face  was  calm. 
He  went  at  once  to  the  pantry,  soon  to  reappear 
with  a  large  piece  of  cake  on  a  plate.  This  he 
solemnly  presented  to  me  with  the  remark,  "I 
am  somewhat  of  a  liar  myself  I" 


292  BEACH  GRASS 

Captain  Howard  was  as  good  as  a  Joseph 
Lincoln  story,  and  his  supply  of  stories  seemed 
unending.  He  had  had  an  adventurous  life  and 
began  young.  He  told  me  bits  of  it  from  time  to 
time,  sitting  by  the  kitchen  stove  in  his  shirt- 
sleeves, his  black  eyes  twinkling,  while  his  wife, 
who  must  have  heard  the  story  many  times,  sat 
by  with  a  smile  on  her  face  of  full  appreciation. 
I  wish  I  could  have  taken  down  all  the  finer 
touches  and  expressions  that  he  used,  but  I  can 
give  it  from  memory  only  as  follows: 

"My  father,  who  was  a  sea-captain,  took  me  on 
a  trip  to  the  West  Indies  when  I  was  nine  years 
old.  The  next  year  my  mother  died  and  the 
old  man  didn't  take  much  of  any  notice  of  me 
and  didn't  care  when  I  went  out  whether  I  came 
back  or  not.  That  was  his  way — so  one  day  I 
never  did  come  back  and  I  never  saw  the  old  man 
again. 

"It  was  this  way:  I  lived  in  New  York  and 
used  to  play  around  the  docks  and  look  up  at 
the  big  ships.  They  were  mostly  sailing-ships 
in  those  days  with  great  high,  painted  sides  and 
blunt    rounded    bows    like    the    old    battleship 


ON  CERTAIN  HUMANITIES       293 

Constitutiofi.  They  would  bunt  into  a  wave 
and  then  give  it  up  and  go  around.  There  were 
steam  vessels  too,  but  my  eyes  was  always  for 
the  sailing  vessels.  On  one  of  these  of  the  old 
Swallow-tail  line  that  plied  between  New  York 
and  London  I  see  an  officer  in  a  shiny  cap  lean- 
ing over  the  rail  and  I  speaks  up  bold  and  asks 
him  if  he  don't  want  a  cabin  boy.  'A  cabin  boy,' 
says  he,  'you  ain't  much  more'n  a  baby  in  arms 
and  we  don't  want  none  of  those  on  this  ship.' 
I'm  not  so  young  as  I  look,'  says  I,  and  I  lied  to 
him  and  says  I  was  thirteen,  when  I  was  no  more 
than  ten,  'and  besides,'  says  I,  'I  am  real  smart 
and  ready  to  do  anything.'  'Go  home  to  your 
mother,'  says  he,  'and  don't  bother  me  no  more; 
we  don't  keep  nus-girls  here.'  I  ain't  got  no 
mother,  and  no  father  neither,'  I  says,  for  I  had 
begun  to  lie  and  thought  I  might  as  well  keep 
on,  'and  no  home  nuther.'  'Where  do  }ou 
sleep ^'  says  he,  looking  at  me  kind  o'  curious-like. 
'Oh,  any  old  place  about  the  dock,'  I  says  care- 
less-like, 'sometimes  in  one  place  and  sometimes 
in  another.'  'Well,'  he  says,  'you  can  come 
aboard  and  wait  till  the  old  man  comes,  and  tell 


294  BEACH  GRASS 

your  story  to  him  and  perhaps  he'll  make  an  able 
seaman  of  you." 

"So  I  shins  up  to  the  deck  and  the  mate  tells 
me  to  stay  quiet  till  the  captain  came.  To  make 
a  long  story  short  the  captain  agreed  to  take  me 
on  my  homeless  story,  and  said  that  if  I  was  a 
good  boy  he  would  pay  me  eight  dollars  a  month 
and  give  me  three  suits  of  clothes. 

"I  was  so  small,  the  cook  put  a  soap  box  for  me 
to  stand  on  in  the  galley  so  as  I  could  reach  up  to 
wash  the  dishes.  I  liked  it  all  right  and  soon 
got  to  feelin'  at  home  aboard  the  old  ship.  The 
grub  was  pretty  poor,  but  then  we  had  sea-ap- 
petites and  could  eat  anything.  Sometimes  we 
had  old  horse  that  had  been  killed  in  the  Civil 
War.  Yes,  that's  straight,  we  would  get  a  bullet 
in  our  mouths  every  now  and  then !  But  the 
ship's  biscuits,  they  was  the  liveliest  things — 
why  sometimes  I  would  put  one  down  by  my  mug 
of  coffee  and  it  would  walk  off — not  far,  but 
perhaps  fourteen  inches. 

''Then  the  cockroaches — we  don't  never  have 
any  as  big  in  these  parts.  They  would  come 
aboard  when  we  were  loading  ship — big  enough 


ON  CERTAIN  HUMANITIES       295 

and  strong  enough  if  properly  harnessed  to  drag 
a  dray  of  Herrick's  safes.  They  was  a  great 
nuisance  on  board.  The  cook  he  had  bean  soup 
on  Thursdays  and  the  cockroaches  got  to  know 
the  day  and  would  line  up  on  the  beams  of  the 
cabin  when  Thursdays  came.  The  soup  was  in 
a  big  tureen  and  had  what  the  cook  called  floating 
islands — hard  tack.  With  the  motion  of  the 
ship,  the  soup  and  its  islands  would  swa)'  back 
and  forth  and  you  could  see  them  cockroaches 
cranin'  their  necks  and  their  eyes  poppin'  out 
lookin'  at  it.  Pretty  soon  they  would  begin 
droppin'  down  on  the  islands  where  they  would 
sing  in  chorus  'A  life  on  the  ocean  wave.' 

'T  ate  the  lively  ship's  bread  but  I  preferred 
the  biscuits  the  captain  had  on  his  table,  and  I 
rigged  up  a  hook,  line  and  sinker,  and  many  a 
time  I  have  fished  up  through  the  cabin  lights  one 
of  them  biscuits.  I  tried  to  fish  up  a  piece  of 
squash  pie  but  it  warn't  no  use. 

"One  day  the  cook  had  biled  up  a  mess  of  fine 
potatoes  for  the  captain's  table  and  I  wanted 
some  of  it  bad.  The  cook  he  had  to  help  carry 
the  baskets  of  food  to  the  captain's  cabin,  and. 


296  BEACH  GRASS 

when  he  was  gone,  I  reached  down  through  the 
hatch  over  the  galley  with  a  long  ladle  used  for 
tar  and  scooped  up  quite  a  lot  of  mashed  potato 
and  eat  it  under  one  of  the  boats.     After  that  I 
walks  down  to  the  galley  innocent  like  and  the 
cook  had  scraped  off  the  dark  part  of  the  potatoes 
where  I  had  tarred  them,  and  put  them  in  a  plate 
and  give  them  to  me.     So  I  had  two  helps  of  po- 
tatoes that  day.     One  time  when  we  was  in  at 
New  York  I  skinned  out  just  as  I  had  seen  the 
sailors  do,  and  went  to  Brooklyn  and  stayed  with 
my  aunt.     There  were  cousins  there  and  I  had  a 
good  time  until  I  thought  it  was  'bout  time  for 
the    Cornelia    to    sail,    so    I    went    back.     The 
captain,  he  made  a  great  blow  out  and  took  me 
by  the  ear  and  near  pulled  it  off,  as  he  asked  me 
where  I  had  been.     I  told  him  to  my  Aunt's,  but 
he  said  I  had  held  the  ship  from  sailing,  and  he 
carried  me  off  to  the  office,  where  they  give  me 
the  first  money  I  had  ever  earned.     Seventy-five 
dollars!     Talk  about  your  Rockyfellers  or  this 
man  up  on  the  hill — they  warn't  in  it  with  me. 

''But  I  hated  that  mate,  Mr.  Green.     He  was 
the  very  devil  in  the  way  he  abused  the  men.     I 


ON  CERTAIN  HUMANITIES       297 

have  seen  him  kick  a  green  horn  with  his  big  sea- 
boots  until  he  nearly  put  him  out  of  commission. 
It  was  such  actions  as  his  that  were  common 
enough  in  those  days  that  sickened  me  of  going 
to  sea.  I  saw  him  murder  a  man  once.  That's 
straight!  It  happened  in  this  way.  It  was  in 
the  night  watch  and  I  was  sittin'  on  the  upper 
deck  abaft  the  mainmast  with  a  piece  of  tarpau- 
lin over  me  to  keep  off  the  wet,  for  it  was  a  thick 
night.  We  was  rollin'  along  in  good  style,  but 
the  wind  was  refreshin',  and  the  mate  he  called 
the  men  to  go  aloft  forward  and  take  in  sail. 
There  was  an  old  feller  aboard  nigh  on  to  seventy 
year  who  they  had  shanghaied.  He  was  pretty 
feeble  and  the  mate  was  always  lookin'  black 
daggers  at  him.  He  was  on  the  watch  that  night, 
but  the  mate  sung  out  to  him  to  stay  behind,  be- 
cause, he  said  to  the  men,  the  old  hulk  would 
probably  fall  off  the  riggin'  and  get  killed. 

''As  soon  as  the  men  was  gone  he  called  the  oKl 
tar,  and,  after  lettin'  out  a  half  dozen  broadsides 
of  oaths  and  sweet  names,  he  come  to  the  root 
of  the  matter — I  was  all  ears  under  the  tarfxuilin 
— unbeknownst  to  either  of  them — and  he  sa^  s. 


298  BEACH  GRASS 

'Goll  dong  you,  didn't  I  tell  you  last  time  I  see 
you  that  if  ever  our  ways  crost  again  I'd  kill 
you.'  The  old  fellow  pleaded  pittyful,  but  the 
mate  he  grabbed  an  iron  belay  in'  pin  and  hit 
him  a  welt  over  the  head — I  had  my  eyes  on  'em 
both  by  that  time — and  over  the  fellow  went 
on  to  the  lower  deck  strikin'  his  head  on  the 
way. 

''I  didn't  know  what  I  was  doin',  but  I  rushed 
out  from  my  hidin'  place  and  says  'Mr.  Green 
you've  killed  him  for  sure  I'  He  turned  like  a 
flash  and  grabbed  me  by  the  collar  and  the  seat 
of  my  trousers  and  held  me  over  the  rail.  For 
a  moment  I  thought  I  was  done  for  too,  but, 
whatever  made  him  do  it,  he  changed  his  mind 
and  pulled  me  back.  There  wasn't  no  one 
'round  to  see  what  had  happened  and  he  pulled 
me  into  his  cabin,  which  was  on  deck — the  captain 
was  down  below  and  asleep — and  he  says  to  me, 
he  says,  puttin'  his  face  within  three  inches  of 
me  and  lookin'  me  straight  in  the  eye:  If  you 
dare  breathe  one  word  of  this,  remember  you're 
the  next  one.'  Then  he  give  me  some  terbaccer 
— I   hadn't   had   none,   but   had   chewed   coffee 


ON  CERTAIN  HUMANITIES       299 

leaves  and  cinnamon — and  we  went  on  deck 
again. 

"When  the  men  came  back  from  furl  in'  the 
sail,  he  points  out  the  old  fellow  and  says  as 
how  he  had  fallen  off  the  upper  deck  with  a  lurch 
of  the  ship.  'Carry  him  into  the  passengers' 
galley'  he  says.  We  took  passengers  only  on  the 
v'age  from  London  to  New  York,  not  the  other 
way,  and  they  had  the  use  of  the  galley  on  the 
port  side  where  they  cooked  their  food.  The 
ship's  galley  was  on  the  starboard  side.  Well, 
the  men  toted  the  poor  wreck  to  the  galley  as 
the  mate  said,  and  then  stowed  themselves  as 
much  out  of  the  wet  as  they  could  for  the  rest  of 
the  watch. 

"I  stayed  in  the  lea  of  the  mainmast  not  know- 
ing what  else  to  do,  and  the  mate  he  stomped  up 
and  down  on  the  deck.  Bymby  he  calls  to  me 
and  tells  me  to  go  for'ward  to  the  passengers' 
galley,  and  see  how  the  old  cuss  was.  Course  I 
took  the  lantern  out  of  the  binacle  and  obeyed 
orders,  but  I  was  scared  chilly — I  could  smell 
death  in  the  air  as  I  came  to  the  galley,  and  there 
was  the  cook's  cat — black  as  a  coal — mewin'  like 


300  BEACH  GRASS 

all  get  out.  The  old  man  was  lyin'  where  the 
sailors  had  left  him  with  his  face  down  on  his 
arms.  I  catched  a  hold  of  him  and  managed  to 
turn  him  over,  and  .his  eyes  was  stickin'  out  of 
his  head  till  you  could  see  the  white  all  round  in 
the  lantern  light  I  They  was  glazed  I  I  run 
back  and  says  to  the  mate  that  he  was  gone,  and 
he  says:     'Re-mem-berl' 

"The  next  day  they  sewed  him  up  in  an  old 
bit  of  sail  and  put  some  pieces  of  iron  at  his  feet 
and  laid  him  on  a  board.  After  the  Capt'n  had 
read  the  prayers,  he  up  and  asks  if  any  one  knew 
how  this  man  come  to  his  death.  I  wanted  to 
speak  out  but  I  sees  the  sharp,  cruel  eyes  of  Mr. 
Green  on  me  and  I  kep  quiet.  Then  they  heaved 
the  end  of  the  board  up  and  the  body  slid  down 
into  the  water,  but  it  bobbed  up  astern  three 
times  before  it  sunk. 

"When  I  was  in  London  on  that  trip  I  went 
to  see  a  policeman — a  bobby  they  calls  them  over 
there — that  I  had  made  acquaintance  with,  and  I 
says  to  him  'What  would  they  do  to  a  man  who 
killed  another  man?'  'How  do  you  know  he 
did  it'?'  says  he  kinder  quick  and  he  looks  at  me 


ON  CERTAIN  HUMANITIES       301 

sharp.  'I  saw  him,'  says  I.  'Where  is  the  mur- 
derer?' says  he,  'let  me  get  at  him.'  'He  is  on 
one  of  the  ships  in  the  river,'  I  says.  He  didn't 
say  nothin'  for  a  few  minutes  and  then  he  said 
'  'Tain't  no  use  I  you're  only  a  boy  and  they'd 
never  believe  you  in  the  world.  You'd  better  say 
nothin'  to  nobody.'  So  I  kep  quiet,  but,  you'd 
better  believe  I  didn't  stay  long  on  that  ship. 

"A  good  many  years  afterwards  when  I  had 
give  up  deep-sea  sailin',  and  was  master  of  a 
iishin'  boat  from  New  York,  we  run  in  one  night 
alongside  of  a  clipper  ship  and  she  seemed  kind 
o'  familiar.  Next  mornin'  I  saw  it  must  be  the 
old  Cornelia  for  I  knew  her  from  stem  to  stern 
and  from  keel  to  truck.  I  shinned  up  a  rope  and 
said  good  mornin'  to  the  officer  who  was  on 
deck,  and  told  him  I  felt  quite  to  home  on  the 
old  craft  as  I  had  sailed  many  trips  in  her  some 
years  back.  I  asked  who  was  the  Capt'n  and  he 
says:  Capt'n  Green,  'Oho,'  says  I,  \  know  him,' 
and  asked  when  he  was  coming  aboard.  He 
says  about  ten  o'clock.  As  it  was  then  nine 
o'clock  I  waited  around  and  there  sure  enough 
was  the  old  devil,  Mr.  Green,  comin'  up  the  gang 


302  BEACH  GRASS 

plank.  I  says  'Good  mornin'  Capt'n  Green,'  civil 
as  you  please,  but  he  didn't  seem  to  remember  me. 
I  says  'You  don't  recolec  me,  Capt'n  Green,  but 
may  be  you  will  after  I  have  refreshed  your 
memory  a  little.'  'Go  ahead,'  says  he,  'I  don't 
like  to  talk  of  private  affairs  in  public,'  I  says. 
So  he  takes  me  aft  to  his  cabin  and  gives  me  a 
strong  cigar  and  poured  out  some  whisky,  but 
I  was  not  drinkin'  any  of  that  stuff.  I  looked 
him  in  the  eye  and  says  'You  don't  remember 
me,'  I  says.  I  was  a  grown  man  then  and  only 
a  shaver  before  so  of  course  it  was  natr'l  he 
shouldn't  know  me.  'I  don't  know  you  from  the 
devil,'  says  he,  speaking  kinder  peeved.  'Well,' 
says  I,  'perhaps  you  can  recall  a  night  on  the 
Cornelia  when  you  held  a  boy  by  the  slack  of 
his  trousers  over  the  rail — you  didn't  drop  him 
and  I'm  that  boy.'  He  was  struck  all  of  a  heap 
and  began  to  talk  about  his  family  and  five  daugh- 
ters and  how  much  depended  on  him.  'Well,'  I 
says,  'I  haven't  told  nobody  and  don't  believe  I 
will  but  I  wondered  whether  you  had  forgit  me,' 
and  I  said  good  day  and  cleared  out  sudden. 
"That  fellow  died  a  few  years  ago  and  a  New 


ON  CERTAIN  HUMANITIES       303 

York  paper  put  in  a  long  notice  as  to  how  tine  a 
man  Captain  Green  was  and  how  noble  a  life 
he  had  lead,  follerin'  the  sea.  I  wanted  to  tell 
that  editor  a  thing  or  two,  for  it  made  me  mad, 
but  I  didn't." 

These  days  of  sea  and  shore  tales  at  some  of 
the  lighthouses  on  our  coast  are  gone,  never  to 
return.  No  longer  is  it  possible  to  find  refuge 
from  the  winter  storm,  from  whirling  snow  and 
sand,  by  the  cozy  fireside  of  the  light-keeper. 
The  lighthouses  still  stand  and  shed  their  lights 
seaward,  but  the  lights  are  impersonal,  mechan- 
ical, automatic,  cold  and  soulless.  In  the  march 
of  progress  the  government  has  found  it  possible, 
in  some  places,  to  do  without  the  human  light- 
keepers  by  using  acetylene  lamps  which  burn  night 
and  day  without  ceasing  and  without  tending, 
except  to  be  replenished  at  long  intervals.  A 
lonely  lighthouse  has  an  appealing,  human 
quality,  and  hard  it  is  to  disassociate  it  from 
humanity.  May  this  mechanical  fate  never  fall 
on  the  light  at  Ipswich! 


INDEX 


INDEX 


ACCIPITERS,    233,    238-240 

Alder    (Alnus    incana   and   A. 

rugosa),  1 6,  177,  213 
Allen,  Francis  H.,  138 
Anoatok,    115 
Arborvitae      (Thuja     occiden- 

talis),  211 
Ash, 

Green      (Fraxinus     pennsyl- 
vanica  var,  lanceolata), 
212 
Mountain       (Pyrus      ameri- 

cana),    212 
Red       (F.      pennsylvanica), 

212 
White    (F.   americana),   212 
Audubon,     John     James,     183, 

229 
Auk,    Great    (Plautus    impen- 

nis),  279 
Aurora   borealis,    n,    131,    132 

Bald  eagle  (Haliaeetus  1. 
leucocephalus),  241,  246, 
247 

Balsam  fir  (Abies  balsamea), 
124,   165,   211 

Baldpate  (Mareca  ameri- 
cana), 265 

Barberry  (Berberis  vulgaris), 
123,  150,  213 

Barn,   Ancient,    216,   217 


Barn  swallow   roost,  194 
Bayberry     (Myrica    carolinen- 

sis),    16,    151,    213 
Beach,   changes  in  outline  4-6 
Beach  grass    (Ammophila  are^ 

naria),    3,    6,    16,    22,    27, 

123. 
Beach    in    winter,    80-94 
Beach    plum     (Prunus    mari- 

tima),   134,   166,  213 
Bearberry         (Archtostaphylos 

uva-ursi),    7 
Beech      (Fagus     grandifolia), 

170,     212 

Birch, 

Canoe     (Betula     alba     var, 

papyrifera),   125,   212 
Gray   or   white    (B.    populi- 
folia),  16,  31,   124,   129, 
164,    212 
Red    (B.  nigra),  7 
Sweet    (B.   lenta),  212 
Yellow    (B.      lutea),   212 
Bird    bath    in    dew,    198 
Bird  boxes,  215 
Bird  calls,  11,  15,  16,  18,  180, 

181,    184 
Bird    protection,    34 
Bittern     (Botaurus     lentigino- 

sus),   178,   179,  262 
Bitter-sweet     (Celastrus    scan- 
dens),  213 


307 


3o8 


INDEX 


Blackberry   (Rubus),  213 
Black      guillemot       (Cepphus 

grylle),    262 
Blackbird,   Red-winged    (Age- 

laius   p.   phceniceus),    185 
Black  walnut  (Juglans  nigra), 

211 

Blood-root  (Sanguinaria  cana- 
densis), 170 
Bluebird  (Sialia  s.  sialis),  186, 

264 
Blue   jay    (Cyanocitta   c.   cris- 

tata),  237 
Bobolink       (Dolichonyx      ory- 
zivorus),    182,    185,    269 
Bob-white,     (Colinus    v.    vir- 

ginianus),    178 
Bonaventure   Island,   266 
Box    elder,    see    Maple,    Ash- 
leaved 
Brewster,    William,    154,    r(>6, 

171,    258 
Bronzed     grackle,     (Quiscalus 
quiscula    aeneus),    i95-i97> 
263,  264,  271 
Brown  Thrasher    (Toxostoma 

rufum),   30,  187 
Briinnich's     Murre      (Uria     1. 

lomvia),    155 
Buffle-head     (Charitonetta    al- 

beola),   265 
Bushes    and    vines    of    forest, 

212,  213 
Buteos,  233,  236,  237 
Butternut     (Juglans    cinerea), 

211 
Buttonbush    (Cephalanthus  oc- 
cidentalis),  7 


Buttonwood      (Platanus     occi- 
dentalis),    123,    212 

Camp  in  dunes,  38,  39,  40 
Candlemas  Day,  63,  64 
Castle  Hill,  7>  8,  84,  89,   136, 

139,    147 
Catbird  (Dumetella  carolinen- 

sis),  182,  i86,   187,   198 
Cat     brier     (Smilax     rotundi- 

folia),    150 
Caterpillar, 

Gypsy      (Ocneria      dispar), 

174 
Wooly-bear   (Arctiidae),  78, 

79 
Cedar, 

Red        (Juniperus       virgin- 

iana),     150,     164,     165, 

211 

White  (Chamaecyparis 

thyoides),    200,   211 

Chat,  Yellow-breasted  (Icteria 

v.   virens),    272 
Cherry, 

Choke   (Prunus  virginiana), 

212 
Wild    black     (P.    serotina), 

129,  212 
Wild    red     (P.    pennsylvan- 
ica),   212 
Chestnut    (Castanea    dentata), 

170,    171 
Chewink       (Pipilo      e.       ery- 

throphthalmus),    30 
Chickadee    (Penthestes    a.    at- 
ricapillus),   118,   174,  175> 
198 


INDEX 


309 


Clam, 

(Common  Mya  arenaria),39 
Sea      (Spisula     solidissima), 

39 
Climate,    Changes    of,    80-83, 

132-134 
Courtship  in  birds,   248-276 
Courtship   of 

baldpate,   265 

bittern,    262 

black  duck,   262,   265 

black   guillemot,   262 

bluebird,    264 

blue-headed   vireo,   262,   264 

bobolink,   269 

bronzed    grackle,    263,    264 
271 

buffle-head,   265 

chat,   272 

cowbird,  264 

eider,    261,    275 

flicker,    275 

gannet,   265-269 

golden-eye,   262,   263,    264 

heath  hen,  262,  272,  273 

horned   lark,  270 

kingbird,    272 

Laysan  albatross,  265 

marsh   hawk,    272 

mallard,   265 

Maryland  yellow-throat, 

269 

merganser,    262,    265 

myrtle  warbler,  262 

nighthawk,  271,   272 

orchard  oriole,  269 

oven-bird,  269 

peacock,    259,   260 


pheasant,    270 

pigeon,    262,    271 

pintail,   265 

pipit,    270 

ptarmigan,    270 

raven,    272 

red-winged    blackbird,    262 

ruffed   grouse,   271 

Savannah  sparrow,  271 

scaup,  265 

semipalmated         sandpiper, 

269 
song    sparrow,    270 
spruce    partridge,    270 
terns,    37,    38 
upland    plover,    270 
vesper  sparrow,  271 
Wilson's  snipe,   274,   275 
woodcock,   274 
Cowbird    (Molothrus  a.  ater), 

264 
Cranberry      (Vaccinium      ma- 

crocarpon),    6 
Cricket 

Field      (Gryllus     assimilis), 

202 
Snowy-tree     (CEcanthus     ni- 
veus),    201,    202 
Cricket    thermometer,    13,    201 
Crossbill      (Loxia     curvirostra 
minor),    183 
White-winged     (L.     leucop- 
tera),    118,    183 
Crow    (Corvus  b.   brachyrhyn- 
chos),  75,  76,  135-161,  182, 

194,    195 
blind    131 
dead,   129,   130,   154 


310 


INDEX 


flights     to     and     from     the 

roost,   137-144,  146,  149, 

150 
food,  150,   151,   152,   156-161 
hopping  and  gliding,  75,  76 
numbers,  140,  141,  143,  144, 

146,   150 
pellets,    156-161 
roost,  135-161 
speed  of  flight,  141 
Cuckoo 
Black-billed    (Coccyzus    ery- 

throphthalmus),         177, 

178 
Yellow-billed   (C.  a.  ameri- 

canus),    178 
Currant    (Ribes),   134 

Damage  to  trees  by  mice  and 

RABBITS,    128 

Dame  Juliana  Bernes,   183 

Darwin,   Charles,  229,   250 

Deer,  White-tailed  or  Vir- 
ginia (Odocoileus  vigi- 
nianus  borealis),  41-48, 
200 

Dew,   n,  198 

Dog's-tooth  violet  (Erythro- 
nium  americanum),   170 

Dogwood,  Flowering  (Cornus 
florida),    212 

Duck,  Black  (Anas  r.  rub- 
ripes),   129,   180,   262,  265 

Dunes,  angle  of,  2 
cirque    or    amphitheatre,    3, 

4,  96 
desert,  2,  3,  96 
eagle,    28,    44 


"glacier,"   2 
nunatak,  4 

rate  of  advance,  3,  95 
"Vendome,"    3,    46 
Dusty  miller   (Arteraesia  Stel- 
leriana),  7 

Eclipse  of  sky,  10 

Eclipse  plumage,   258 

Eel   (Anguilla  chrisypa),  282 

Eeler,    233-285 

Eelgrass      (Zostera      marina), 

16,  282 
Egret    (Herodias  egretta),   26, 

27 
Eider     (Somateria    mollissima 

dresseri),  261,  275 
Elder    (Sambucus  canadensis), 

213 
Elm   (Ulmus  americana),  125, 

165,  212 
English       game-keeper,       230, 

238 
Eskimo,   103,   115 
Eveleth,  The  Edivard  S.,  286, 

287 

Falconry,  227,  228 
Falcons,    233,    234,    235 
Fisher,  W.  K.,  265 
Flicker    (Colaptes    auratus   lu- 

teus),    185 
Flycatcher,  Yellow-bellied 

(Empidonax   flaviventris), 
172 
Forest 
The,    162-213 
birds,    172-199 


INDEX 


311 


bushes  and  vines,  212,  213 

census   of   trees,    i68,    169 

ferns,   208 

lean-to,    171,     172 

mammals,    199-201 

odors,   206,   207 

path   in   darkness,    193,   203, 
204 

planting,    164,    165 

rain,  202,  204,  205 

snow,  204,   205 

sounds,  201,  202,  205 

trees,   list  of,  211,   212 

views,   203 

wild   flowers,    170,   207 

wood-cutting,    208-211 
Fox,     Red      (Vulpes     fulvus), 

49-61,    199 
Frost  cracks  in  dunes,  5^  83 
Frost-rime,  91-94 

Gannet   (Sula  bassana),  244, 

245,  265-269 
Girdling  of  trees  by  mice,  128 
Glacial   kettles,   99,    100,    loi 
Gliding,   242 
Golden-eye     (Clangula     clan- 

gula  americana),  262,  263, 

264 
Goldenrod,     Maritime,     (Soli- 
dago        sempervirens), 
123 
Goldfinch       (Astragalinus      t. 

tristis),  22,  185 
Goose,     Canada      (Branta     c. 

canadensis),  24,  25 
Gooseberry,  Wild    (Ribes  oxy- 

canthoides),    213 


Goshawk     (Astur     a.     atrica- 

pillus),   239 
Grape, 

Fox    (Vitis   labusca),   213 
Frost  (V.  vulpina),  213 
Grass     bird     (Pisobia     macu- 

lata),   235 
Grasshopper,    Seaside    (Trim- 

erotropis    maritima),    27 
Grosbeak, 

Evening     (Hesperiphona    v. 

vespertina),    183,    184 
Pine      (Pinicola     enucleator 
leucura),  183 
Ground  hog,  see  Woodchuck 
Groundnut    (Apios    tuberosa), 

213 
Grouse,     Ruffed      (Bonasa     u. 

umbellus),    271 
Gull, 

Great    black-backed     (Larus 

marinus),  91 
Herring      (L.      argentatus), 
lo,    22,   246 
Gurney,  J.   H,,  266 

Hackberry      (Celtis     occiden- 

talis),   212 
Hardback       (Spiraea      tomen- 

tosa),  213 
Hawk, 

Broad-winged     (Buteo    pla- 

typterus),   236 
Cooper's  (Accipiter  cooperi), 

238,  239 
Duck        (Falco       perigrinus 
anatum),    22,    235,    236, 
246 


312 


INDEX 


Fish       (Pandion      haliaetus 

carolinensis),    241 
Marsh    (Circus    hudsonius), 

193,       194,      240,      241, 
246 
Pigeon    (Falco  c.  columbar- 

ius),   235 
Red-shouldered      (Buteo     1. 

lineatus),  236,  237 
Red-tailed    (B.   b.  borealis), 

236,  237 
Rough-legged       (Archibuteo 

lagopus  sancti-johannis), 

237,  238,    244 
Sharp-shinned  (Accipiter 

velox),    238,    239 
Sparrow    (Falco  s.   sparver- 

ius),    234 
Sparrow,  European  (Accipi- 
ter nisus),  22 
Hawks 

Field   identification   of,  232- 

234 
Soaring    of,    230,    231,    241- 
244,  246,  247. 
Hawking,    227-247 
Hazel     (Corylus     americana), 

213 

Heartbreak   Hill,    115,   135 
Heath       hen       (Tympanuchus 

cupido),  262,  272,  273 
Hemlodk    (Tsuga  canadensis), 

211 

Hepatica     (Hepatica    triloba), 

170 
Heron, 

Black-crowned   night    (Nyc- 
ticorax    nycticorax    nae- 


vius),  10,  31,  32,  33,  58, 
180 
Great  blue    (Ardea  h.  her- 
odias),   76 
Heronry,    31,    32,    33 
Herring     (Clupea     harengus), 

288,    289 
Herring-torching   288,    289 
Hickory,       Bitternut       (Carya 

cordiformis),    2H 
Hobble-bush    (Viburnum    alni- 

folium),    212 
Hog  Island,   121 
Hornbeam      (Carpinus      caro- 
liniana),   211 
Hop     (Ostrya    virginiana), 
211 
Horned   lark    (Otocoris   a.   al- 

pestris),    73 
Howard, 

Captain   Alfred  A.,   83,   290 
his   story,   292-303 
Howard,  H.  Eliot,  252 
Howard,    George,    290 
Hudson,  W.  H.,  230 
Hudsonia     (Hudsonia     tomen- 

tosa),  7 
Hummingbird,     Ruby-throated 
(Archilochus        colubris), 
188-190 
Humanities,  277-303 


Ice 


arches  in  marsh,   107 
booming    of,    1 1 6 
boulders  carried  by,  84,  85 
crystals,    93,    94,    126 
cobblestone,    88' 


INDEX 


313 


conglomerate,    88 

floe,   90,    91 

foot,    84 

formations   in   salt  marshes, 
102-110 

formations  on  the  beach  and 
sea,    80-94 

grottos,   86 

lolly,  90 

pancake,  90 

prismatic  colors  of,  126 

slob,    87,    90 

storm,    120-127 

wall,    85-88 
Ice    and    snow    in    the    sand 

dunes,   95-101 
Indians,   132,  277,  282 
Instinct,   249 
Isles  of  Shoales,  8 

JUNCO     (Junco    hyemalis),    21 
Juniper,  Low   (Juniperus  com- 
munis var,  depressa),  213 

Kestrel     (Tinnunculus    alau- 

darius),   228 
Kingbird      (Tyrannus     tyran- 

nus),    179,   272 
Kingfisher      (Ceryle      alcyon), 

182 
Kinglet,  Golden-crowned   (Re 

gulus  s.  satrapa),   118' 
Koolatuk,   103,   104 

Labor-in-vain  creek,   115 
Labrador,    16,    23,    90 
Lady's    slipper     (Cypripedium 
acaule),   208 


Lapland    longspur    (Calcarius 

1.    laponicus),    73 
Laysan     albatross     (Diomedia 

immutabilis),    265 
Larch     (Larix    laricina),    170, 

211 
Light-keepers,   289,   290 
Lillienthal,  76 
Linden   (Tilia  americana),  125 

212 
Locust     (Robinia    Pseudo-Aca- 
cia), 200,  212 
Clammy    (R.    viscosa),    212 
Loon   (Gavia  immer),  lo,  51 

MacMillan,   Donald  G.,   104 
Mallard  (Anas  platyrhynchos), 

265 
Maple, 
Ash-leaved  (Acer  negundo), 

183,    212 
Mountain      (A.      spicatum), 

212 

Red    (A.  rubrum),  212 
Striped       (A.      pennsylvani- 

Cum),     212 

Sugar    (A.   saccharum),   212 
White      (A.      saccharinum), 
31,    125,    165,    212 
Maryland  yellow-throat  (Geo- 
thlypis  t.  trichas),   18,   30, 
173,    176,    179,    198 
Maynard,  Charles  J.,   34 
Meadowlark       (Sturnella      m. 

magna),   no,   133,   182 
Meadowsweet   (Spiraea  salici- 

folia),   213 
Merganser 


314 


INDEX 


American     (Mergus    ameri- 

canus),  262 
Red-breasted   (M.  serrator), 
91,   265 
Merula    Farm,     190 
Migration  of  birds,  11,  14,  17, 

180,    i8i 
Mirage,  8 

Mistaken    diagnosis,    279,    280 
Moonlight 

in   the    dunes,    13,    14 
in        ice-covered       marshes, 
106 
Morning   awakening  of   birds, 

177,  i8i,  182 
Mouse, 

Field    or    meadow     (Micro- 
tus  pennsylvanicus),  30, 
127,    128,   129 
Jumping     (Zapus     hudsoni- 

us),   30,   68 
White-footed       (Peromyscus 
leucopus      noveboracen- 
cis),  30,  51 
Mt.  Agamenticus   8 
Muir,  John,   100 
Muslkrat   (Fiber  zibeticus),  61, 

62 
Myopia   Club   hunt,    167,   168 
Myrtle    berry,    see    Bayberry 

Nelson,  E.  W.,  31,  158 
Nighthawk   (Chordeiles  v.  vir- 

ginianus),  271,  277 
Nights  in  the  dunes,  9-16,  23, 

24 
Night    singing    of    birds,    177, 

178,  179 


Nuthatch,    Red-breasted  (Sitta 
canadensis),    ii8 

Oak, 
Bur    (Quercus  macrocarpa), 

212 
Chestnut    (Q.    Prinus),    212 
English      (Q.     Robur     var. 

pedunculata),    116 
Red    (Q  rubra),  7,  213 
Scarlet     (Q.    coccinea)     212 
Scrub    (Q.   ilicifolia),    165 
Swamp   white    (Q.   bicolor), 

212 
White    (Q.    alba),    212 
Odors,   52 
Oriole, 
Baltimore        (Icterus       gal- 

bula),   185 
Orchard    (I.   spurius),  269 
Osprey,  see  Hawk,   Fish 
Osier,    Red     (Cornus     stoloni- 

fera),   212 
Oven-bird    (Seiurus  aurocapil- 

lus),  269 
Owl 

Great  horned   (Bubo  v.  vir- 

ginianus),    147 
Long-eared      (Asio     wilson- 

ianus),   29,    30,    31 
Screech    (Otus   a.   asio),   180 
Short-eared        (Asio       flam- 

meus),    27 
Snowy   (Nyctea  nyctea),  28, 
29 
Oyster  (Ostrea  virginica),  281 

Partridge,    Spruce    (Canachi- 


INDEX 


315 


tes    canadensis    canace), 
270 
Peacock   (Pavo  cristatus),  259, 

260 
Peregrine  falcon    (Falco  pere- 

grinus),    228 
Pheasant,    Ring-necked    (Pha- 

sianus       torquatus),       61, 

114,    133,    176,   270 
Phoebe       (Sayornis      phoebe), 

185 
Pigeon,     Domestic      (Columba 

domestica),  262,  271 
Pine, 
Banksian  (Pinus  Banksiana), 

211 

Pitch    (P.   rigida),   2,   6,   31, 

64,    170,    211 
Red    (P.  resinosa),  165,   170, 

211 
White     (P.     Strobus),     124, 
165,  166,  211 
Pine    siskin     (Spinus     pinus), 

183 
Pintail    (Dafila   acuta),  265 
Pipit    (Anthus   rubescens),    i6, 

22,    270 
Play 

in     cottontail     rabbits,     199, 

200 
in    starlings,    145 
in  swallows,  223,  224 
Pleasure 

-Esthetic,  229 
Intellectual,   228,   229 
Plover, 

Black-bellied         (Squatarola 
squatarola),   70 


Piping    (y^gialitis    meloda), 

27 
Ring-necked     (^^.     semipal- 

mata),  15 
Upland     (Bartramia    longi- 
cauda),  270 
Poison    ivy    (Rhus   Toxicoden- 
dron), 17,  150,  213 
Poplar,    Aspen     (Populus    tre- 

muloides),    125,    211 
Ptarmigan,    Willow    (Lagopus 

1.   lagopus),  270 
Purple    finch     (Carpodacus    p. 

purpureus),  22,  185 
Pycraft   W.    P.,    252 

Queen  Anne's  lace  (Daucus 
Carota),  225 

Rabbit,  Cotton-tail  (Sylvila- 
gus  transitionalis),  54 
65-67,   127-129,   199,   200 

Rain-in-the   Face,   Chief,    114 

Rain  drops  on  the  sand,  69 

Rat,  Norway  (Rattus  nove- 
gicus),  (y-j 

Rattlesnake  plantain  (Epi- 
pactis    pubescens),    208 

Raven,  Northern  (Corvus  co- 
rax   principalis),   246,   272 

Reason,  249 

Redpoll  (Acanthis  1.  linaria), 
183 

Redstart  (Setophaga  ruticilla), 
18,   20 

Reflex   action,   249 

Rhodora  (Rhodora  cana- 
dense),   7,   213 


3i6 


INDEX 


Ripple-marks,   i 

Robin    (Planesticus  m.  migra- 

torius),   21,   182,   190-193 
Robin    roost,    190-193 
Rose,    Wild     (Rosa    Carolina, 

R.  nitida),   17,  213 

Sagamore  Hill,  8,  121 
Sagamore  Pond,  n6,  i2i 
Salt  marshes,  Ice  formation  in, 

I02-II0 

Sand   and   Ice   formations,   97, 

98 
Sand  dunes. 

Days  and  nights  In,  1-40 
in  winter,  95-101 
Tracks    in,    41-79 
Sander,    285-287 
Sanderling      (Calidris     leuco- 

phsea),   15,   69 
Sassafras     (Sassafras    variifo- 

lium),  212 
Saunders,  F.  A.,   130,  155 
Scaup    (Marila   marila),   265 
Scoresby,  Captain  William,  90 

Scoters  (Oidemia),  236 

Seal,  Harbor  (Phoca  vitulina), 

70-73,    90 
Sexual   selection,  250-258 
Shad        bush        (Amelanchler 

canadensis),    164,    212 
Shell   heaps,   278-281 
Short  cuts,    117 
Shrew,    Short-tailed     (Blarina 

brevicauda),   30 
Shrike,   Northern    (Lanius  bo- 

realis),  182,  183 


Siskin,    Pine     (Spinus    pinus), 

183 
Skunk    (Mephitis   putida),    13, 

51,  69 
Snipe,      Wilson's      (Gallinago 

delicata),    274,   275 
Snow  bunting    (Plectrophenax 

n.   nivalis),   29,   73 
Snowfall,  8i,  82 
Soaring,   241-247 
Soul   and  body  lashing,   104 
Sparrow, 

Chipping     (Spizella    p.    pu- 

silla),   30,   177,   185 
Fox        (Passerella       iliaca), 

184 
Henslow's      (Passerherbulus 

h.    henslowi),    275 
Ipswich     (Passerculus    prin- 

ceps),   27 
Savannah     (P.    sandwichen- 
sis    savanna),    -22,     30, 
185 
Sharp-tailed      (Passerherbu- 
lus   caudacutus),    30 
Song     (Melospiza     m.     me- 
lodia),     30,     173,     177, 
185 
Vesper     (PocEcetes    g.     gra- 

mineus),    30,    185 
White-throated         (Zonotri- 
chia    albicolis),    22,    184 
271 
Spraying   of  trees,    174,   175 
Spring,  early  and  late,  134 
Spruce, 
Black  (Picea  mariana),  170, 

211 


INDEX 


317 


Red    (P.   rubra),  170,  211 
White    (P.  canadensis),  170, 
211 
Squirrel,  Gray  (Sciurus  caroli- 

nensis  leucotis),   199 
Starling     (Sturnus     vulgaris), 

144,    145,    150,    193 
Starvation   of   birdS;    129,    130, 

152 
Stickleback,  Three-spined 

(Gasteosteus      aculeatus), 
197 
Sumach, 

Smooth    (Rhus  glabra),  212 
Staghorn    (R.    typhina),    17, 
123,    150,    151,    212 
Swallows    at   work    and    play, 

214-226 
Swallow, 
Bank   (Riparia  riparia),  22, 

223,    224 
Barn       (Hirundo      erythro- 
gastra),   12,  22,  74,  194, 
215-218,    221-226 
Eave   (Petrochelidon  1.  luni- 

frons),    222,    223,    224 
Tree    (Iridoprocne    bicolor), 
n,     22,     74,     173,     181, 
182,      215,      219,      220, 
223-226 
Swallow  cave,  215 

Taverner,  p.  a.,  265 
Tern, 

Arctic    (Sterna    paradisaea), 

34 
Common        (S.        hirundo), 
34-38 


Roseate     (S.    cougalli),    34, 
36,   37,    38 
Thayer,  Abbott   H,,   67 
Thoreau,    Henry    D.,    70,    201, 

229 
Thorn    (Crataegus),    212 
Thrush 

Bicknell's     (Hylocichla    ali- 

ciae   bicknelli),  21 
Gray-cheeked     (H.    a.     ali- 

ciae),  21 
Hermit  (H.  guttata  pallasi), 

^  79,    275 
Olive-backed     (H.    ustulata 
swainsoni),   21 
Thurlow,   Captain,   283-285 
Tiercel,   239 
Toad    (Bufo  americanus),   13, 

27,  1(>,  77 
Tracks    of 
cat,   68,    69 
crow,   51,  75 
deer,   41-48 
dog,    49 
fox,    49-61,    69 
ground  hog,  62-65 
horned    lark,    73 
herons,   76 
herring   gull,    74 
insects,    77-79 
Lapland    longspur,    73 
mouse,    jumping,    68 

white-footed,    12,   78 
muskrat,   61,   62 
plover,   69,   70,  74 
rabbit,  65-67 
rat,    e^ 
sanderling,  69 


3i8 


INDEX 


sandpipers,   70 
seal,    70-72 
skunk,  13,  51,  69 
snow   bunting,   73 
sparrows,   74 
swallows,   73,   74 
toad,  13,  76,  77 
woodchuck,  62-65 
wooly-bear    caterpillar,    78, 

79 
Treadwell's    Island,    280 
Trees  of  forest,  211,  212 
Trumpet  creeper  (Tecoma  ra- 

dicans),    213 
Trumpet    creeper     and    hum- 
mingbirds,   188-190 
Tulip       tree        (Liriodendron 

Tulipifera),  212 
Tupelo  (Nyssa  sylvatica),  212 
Turkey,  Wild  (Meleagris  gal- 

lopavo   silvestris),   279 
Turnstone,    Ruddy     (Arenaria 

interpres  morinella),  15 
Tyler,    Dr.    W.    M.,    139,    150 

Up-currents  of   air,   242-244 
Uplands    in    winter,    in-134 

Veery     (Hylocichla    f.    fusce- 

scens),  21 
Vendome   dune,    3 
Vermin,    230,    238 
Viburnum, 

Arrow- wood  (Viburnum 

dentatum),   212 
Maple-leaf  (V.  acerifoHum), 

213 
Sweet     (V.    Lentago),    213 


Withe-rod    (V.   casGinoides), 

213 
Vireo, 
Red-eyed      (Vireosylva     oli- 

vacea),    188 
Solitary       or       blue-headed 
(Lanivireo     s.     solitar- 
ius),  21,  262,  264 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russel,  229 
Warbler, 

Bay-breasted  (Dendroica 

castanea),   19 
Black-poll    (D.    striata),    17 
Bladk-throated    blue    (D.    c. 

caerulescens),    18 
Black-throated     green      (D. 

virens),    18 
Cape  May  (D.  tigrina),  19, 

20 
Magnolia      (D.     magnolia), 

18,   20,    184 
Myrtle     (D.    coronata),    17, 

129,    184,    262 
Nashville       (Vermivora      r. 

rubricapilla),  18 
Parula  (Compsothlypis 

amerlcana  usneae),  18 
Pine  (D.  vigorsi),  30 
Tennessee  (Vermivora  pere- 

grina),  i8,  19 
Yellow    (D.  ae.  aestiva),   173 
Warblers,  Group  of,  20,  21. 
Water-holes,   49,    50 
Weasel,    Little    brown     (Mus- 

tela  cicognani),  200 
Waxwing,      Cedar       (Bomby- 
cilla  cedrorum),   186 


INDEX 


319 


Whistler,    see    Golden-eye 
White,  Gilbert,  230 
Wigwam  Hill,   29,   33,   64 
Willow,   Ancient,   7,    8 
Willow,     White     (Salix     alba 

var   vitellina),   211 
Wilson,   Alexander,  229 
Wind,   Sounds  of,   115 
Winterbery       (Ilex       verticil- 

lata),  213 
Winthrop   the   younger,    8 
Witch     hazel      (Hammamelis 

virginiana),    165,    213 
Woodbine    (Psedera    quinque- 


folia),  213 
Wood   chopping,   208-211 
Woodchuck     (Marmotta    mon- 

ax   preblorum),    62-65 
Woodcock    (Philohela    minor), 

177,    274 
Wreck  of  Ed^'jard  S.  Eveleth, 

287 

Yellow-legs,  Greater  (To- 
tanus  melanoleucus),  70, 
179,   180. 

Yew   (Taxus  canadensis),  213 


HECKMAN 

BINDERY  INC. 

JAN  93 

N.  MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA  46962 


